The remains of a British researcher have been recovered from a glacier in Antarctica, more than 60 years after a scientific expedition went badly wrong.
In 1959, Dennis “Tink” Bell was working for the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS), now known as the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), when he died in a deep crack in a glacier on King George Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula.
His body was never recovered.
But in January this year, a Polish team spotted scattered human remains among rocks that had been exposed by a moving glacier.
The parts were later confirmed via DNA testing to be those of the 25-year-old meteorologist.
His brother, David Bell, said: “When my sister Valerie and I were notified that our brother Dennis had been found after 66 years, we were shocked and amazed.”
The remains were transported on the BAS Royal Research Ship Sir David Attenborough to the Falkland Islands, and then taken to London.
David Bell said bringing his sibling home had “helped us come to terms with the tragic loss of our brilliant brother”.
Rod Rhys Jones, chair of the British Antarctic Monument Trust (BAMT), called it “amazing that the Polish team recognised the remains”, which had been shifted around steep terrain by the movement of the glacier.
The main hut at Admiralty Bay base in 1951. Pic: Roger Todd-White
How the accident unfolded
On 26 July 1959 – deep winter in the Southern Hemisphere – Dennis Bell set out with surveyor Jeff Stokes and dog sleds to carry out survey and geological work.
Bell helped to survey King George Island, which had been largely unexplored, to produce some of the first maps of the territory.
He and Stokes planned to climb a glacier leading to an ice plateau, along with two more researchers, Ken Gibson and Colin Barton, who followed them about half an hour later.
Dennis ‘Tink’ Bell, far right, celebrating Christmas at Admiralty Bay Station, circa 1958. Pic: D Bell
Ascending the glacier, Bell and Stokes crossed an area riddled with crevasses – deep fissures in icy glaciers – and then believed they were in a safer area.
But the dogs started to tire from ploughing through the deep, soft snow.
Bell went ahead to gee them up, “tragically, without his skis”, BAS and BAMT said.
Suddenly, he disappeared down a deep crevasse that had been hidden by snowfall resting over the top, leaving behind a gaping hole in the white landscape.
Ecology Glacier is on King George Island, in the South Shetland Islands. Pic: MAGIC, BAS
Sir Vivian Fuchs, a previous director of BAS, describes what happened next in his book, Of Ice and Men.
“Peering into the depths, Stokes called repeatedly and was greatly relieved to be answered. Lowering a rope almost a hundred feet, he told Bell to tie himself on.
“As he could not haul up the weight, he hitched his end of the rope to the team. The dogs took the strain and began to pull. Now it was easy and everything was going well.
“But Bell had tied the rope through his belt instead of round his body, perhaps because of the angle at which he lay in the crevasse. As he reached the top his body jammed against the lip, the belt broke, and down he went again.
“This time there was no reply to Stoke’s calls. It was a particularly tragic fatality which one really felt should never have happened, and thus doubly grievous.”
Eventually, Stokes met up with Gibson and Barton further down the glacier.
But the weather deteriorated, and it took them hours to find the markers Stokes had set up in the snow, by which point they were sure Bell had died.
Rocks on the edge of Ecology Glacier. Pic: Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station
The Polish discovery
More than 60 years later, Polish researchers from the Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station discovered by chance some bones and artefacts in the rocky moraine edge of the Ecology Glacier on 19 January this year.
A team returned to the site as soon as they could in February – lest it be covered by snow or rock again – to survey it in more detail.
They recovered more bone fragments and personal items, including broken radio equipment, a torch, ski poles, an inscribed Erguel wristwatch, a Swedish Mora knife, ski poles and an ebonite pipe stem.
“Every effort was made to ensure that Dennis could return home,” three of the Polish scientists said in a statement.
BAS’s director of operations Oliver Darke said the discovery brings “important closure for the Bell family, who never knew what had happened to their brother after his fall into the crevasse”.
“Antarctica is an inhospitable and dangerous place to operate in,” he told Sky News, adding BAS prioritises safety above all else, via extensive training and procedures and experienced polar field guides.
