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Little Dane, Biddenden, Ashford, Kent
Telephone : Biddenden 214
Mrs. John McCall,
c/o University of Alaska,
Alaska, via U.S.A.
31st December 1954
Dear Mary Ann,
It was very sweet of you to Herd us that card and we
much appreciate receiving it. We shall be so glad to hear from you from
time to time and to know what are your future plans.
John is still very much alive in our memory .here and I
thought it would interest you to see the charming notice, written by
Terence Armstrong, which we are publishing in the next issue of the
Journal of Glaciology.
With kindest regards from Loris, arid myself.
Yours very sincerely,
Enclosure.
 JOHN GILL McCALL, PH.D.
JOHN McCall died suddenly on 5 November 1954 in
Alaska. He was 31. He left Pennsylvania State University when the war
started, and saw some of the hardest fighting in Europe as a parachutist
with a U.S. airborne division. After the war he decided to go to Alaska
and continue his university career. He was a first-class skier and
mountaineer—he was one of the few who have climbed Mount McKinley—and
grew so fond of the Alaskan countryside that he decided to make his home
there. He graduated in engineering in 1950, and came to Cambridge to
take a Ph.D. in glaciology. He chose as his subject "The flow
characteristics of a cirque glacier and their effect on glacier
structure and cirque erosion," where his application of engineering
techniques was especially valuable. During his three years he made four
trips to Vesl-Skautbreen, a cirque glacier in Jotunheimen in Norway,
where he jointly led the Cambridge party which so successfully
investigated this little glacier by tunnels and careful survey and
related work. It was in no small measure due to his genial character,
his natural leadership, his persistence and his skill, particularly in
the field, that this considerable task was accomplished.
On receiving his Ph.D. in 1953 he returned to the
University of Alaska as a member of the teaching staff, and the
following academic year was made Acting Head of the Department of
Geology. He introduced a course in glaciology, a new departure for his
University. He was also very proud of the fact that he was called in to
advise an Alaskan firm of civil engineers about possible glacier
encroachment on a projected road, and was therefore possibly the first
glaciologist to be paid a consultant's fee.
He continued to ski and climb. He was coach to the
University ski team; and in the spring of 1954 he led a rescue party,
with great skill and complete success, up to 11,000 ft. on Mount
McKinley to bring back an injured climber.
His was an extraordinarily attractive personality; all
associated with him will feel his loss deeply. A career full of promise
has been tragically cut short and the Society has lost one of its
strongest supporters. His widow and four children deserve the deepest
sympathy.
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