P03171.003 Accession Number: P03171.003

Description

Informal portrait of Captain (Capt) George Hubert Wilkins. After returning to Australia in 1917 from the Arctic where he was the deputy leader of the Stefansson expedition, Wilkins joined the Australian Flying Corps, was commissioned in May 1917 as a Lieutenant and sent to France. He was the second Australian Official Photographer to be appointed to the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) after Captain (Capt) Frank Hurley in July 1917. Wilkins and Hurley arrived in France in August 1917 where they both quickly developed a reputation for the quality of their work, taking many excellent photographs of the Australian's fighting in France and Belgium. Wilkins remained in France after Hurley left for Palestine in November 1917. About the time Hurley left the AIF in July 1918 the Official Photographers were placed under the administration of the Australian War Records Section, and Wilkins was appointed officer in charge of a now much expanded Photographic Section in France. In 1919, Wilkins was a member of the Australian Historical Mission to Turkey, led by C. E. W. Bean. Wilkins was the only Australian official photographer to be decorated for bravery, he was awarded the Military Cross in 1917 and a bar in 1918. After the First World War he became famous as an Arctic and Antarcic explorer. In 1928 he purchased a Lockheed Vega and with pilot Carl Ben Eielson he flew from Barrow in Alaska to Spitsbergen in Norway, the first flight to be made across the Arctic Sea. Both men became celebrities, Wilkins was knighted and choose to be known as Sir Hubert Wilkins. Sir Hubert WIlkins died on 30 November 1958, and his ashes were scattered at the North Pole by the US Navy submarine, Skate, on 17 March 1959. Photograph courtesy of The Ohio State University, Byrd Polar Research Centre Archival Program, Sir George Hubert Wilkins Papers, RG 56.6, box 35, folder 9. Copies of this photograph and permission to use can only be obtained from The Ohio State University.