Freddie Spencer Chapman

Frederick Spencer Chapman, (10 May 1907 – 8 August 1971) was a British Army officer and World War II veteran, most famous for his exploits behind enemy lines in Japanese occupied Malaya.

His medals include the following: the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the Polar Medal, Gill Memorial Medal, Mungo Park Medal, and the Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal.

Both of Chapman's parents died whilst he was still a young child.

His mother, Winifred Ormond, died shortly after his birth in London and his father, Frank Spencer Chapman, was killed at the Battle of the Somme; Freddie (or sometimes Freddy as he was to become known) and his older brother, Robert, were cared for by an elderly clergyman and his wife in the village of Cartmel, on the edge of the Lake District.

Chapman developed an early interest in nature and the outdoors.

As a boy he was, by his own account, 'first a mad-keen butterfly collector, then a wild-flower enthusiast, and at last a bird-watcher'.

These were continuing interests throughout his school years and into his adult life.

At the age of 8, "after a disastrous term in the kindergarten of a girls' school in Kendal [then Westmorland, now Cumbria], I was sent to a private school at Ben Rhydding, on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. The headmaster – a man of infinite kindness and understanding- was an enthusiastic entomologist... [and] I left Private School with a good knowledge of gardening and a vast enthusiasm for all forms of natural history."

When Chapman was 14 years old he went to Sedbergh School in Yorkshire, but did not excel in any of his chosen subjects.

Chapman, in his own words, "loathed the monotonous bell-regulated routine of school life" and considered lessons as "things to be avoided by all possible means, fair or foul, and organised games were a waste of a fine afternoon.".

He preferred to be out walking and climbing in the surrounding fells.

This eventually resulted in Chapman being excused by the headmaster – whom Chapman described as wise and sympathetic to his cause – from having to participate in organised sports, especially cricket, as long as he did not waste his time.

Chapman used this time to explore the local area on foot.

Whilst at Sedbergh School, Chapman won a Kitchener Scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge, in 1926, to study history and English.

It was there that he developed his passion for adventure and, by the end of his university years, had already completed several overseas excursions including a climbing expedition in the Alps and a journey to Iceland to study plant and bird life.

It was here that he met, and was inspired by, the great mountaineer Geoffrey Winthrop Young, and joined the Cambridge University Mountaineering Club (CUMC).

Chapman was attached as "ski expert and naturalist" to Gino Watkins' 1930–31 British Arctic Air Route Expedition.

Expedition members included John Rymill and Augustine Courtauld.

Chapman, with the other expedition members, was awarded the Polar Medal, with the clasp Arctic 1930–1931, after the successful first expedition.

In between the Greenland Expeditions he attempted what was to become the Bob Graham Round fell running challenge, 70 miles and 30000 ft of climbing in the English Lake District Fells, his time of 25 hours was not however a record.

Gino Watkins moulded an extraordinary esprit de corps in his expeditions, and the expedition members were a mixture of hard nuts, and rather fey Cambridge misfits.

Many of the members would go on to do extraordinary things in the war.

These members included Martin Lindsay, Augustine Courtauld and Chapman himself.

He also joined Watkins' subsequent fatal Greenland Expedition of 1932–33, which was led by Rymill after Watkins' death.

Chapman experienced cold of such intensity that he lost all his finger and toe nails.

He spent twenty hours in a storm at sea in his kayak and at one point fell into a deep crevasse, saving himself by holding onto the handles of his dog sled.

He later led a three-man team across the desolate Greenland ice-cap.

The first European to do this since Nansen, he became fluent in the Inuit language and was an able kayaker and dog sledger.

Early in 1936, he joined a Himalayan climbing expedition.

He was not only a keen mountaineer but studied the history of mountaineering, Dr Kellas being amongst his heroes.

He enjoyed difficult climbs and met Basil Gould, the Political Officer for Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet.

Gould invited Spencer to be his private secretary on his political mission, from July 1936 to February 1937, to persuade the Panchen Lama to return from China and establish permanent British representation in Lhasa.

Spencer struggled to learn Tibetan, learning it well enough to converse.

He was involved in cypher work, kept a meteorological log, pressed six hundred plants, dried seeds, and made notes on bird life.

He kept a diary of "events" in Lhasa and took many photographs that were sent to India on a weekly basis.

He was allowed to wander and did so in an unshepherded way into the middle of Tibet and around the Holy City.

After his return from Lhasa, Chapman obtained permission to lead a five-man expedition from Sikkim to the holy mountain Chomolhari, which the British group had passed on the way from Sikkim to Tibet in July 1936.

Chapman and Sherpa Pasang Dawa Lama succeeded to become the first mountaineers to climb the 7314 m high peak, which they finally reached from the Bhutanese side after finding the route from the Tibetan side impassable.

In 1938 Spencer taught at Gordonstoun School where Prince Philip was one of his pupils.

The mountain would not be climbed again until 1970.