1954 Italian Karakoram expedition controversy
Initially there were complaints from one of the members of the expedition, Walter Bonatti, about how he felt the report overlooked the importance of his and Amir Mahdi's roles in enabling the climb to be successful.
As the years went by there was increasing support for Bonatti's claims and criticism of the Italian mountaineering authority, the Club Alpino Italiano (CAI), for its failure to deal with the matter.
In 2007, after Desio had died, the CAI at last published a revised official account of the climb which generally found in favour of Bonatti's version of events.
When Charlie Houston, who had led the 1953 American K2 expedition, attended the jubilant Italian celebrations for the successful climb he realised that behind the scenes things had not been happy.
Compagnoni then took the CAI to court to ask to be allocated some of the profits from the film Italia K2[1] which was drawing large audiences – he eventually lost the case in 1958.
That Compagnoni and Lacedelli had reached the summit of K2 was not in dispute – the issue to begin with was how the lead climbers had treated Bonatti and Mahdi who, high on the mountain, had been carrying up oxygen cylinders for them.
Desio died in 2001 at the age of 104 and eventually in 2004 the Club Alpino Italiano appointed three experts, called "I Tre Saggi" (the three wise men) to investigate.
[21][note 8] Early in the morning of 31 July, as soon as there was a glimmer of light, Compagnoni and Lacedelli emerged from their tent and were amazed to see a figure below them (they could not tell who it was) heading down the mountain.
When Bonatti returned to Italy he was disappointed he had not been in the summit party but he had no idea about the cause of the ostracism he would suffer from other mountaineers in the coming decades.
[35] They did not have sleeping bags or a tent and Mahdi was by now in a great panic, stumbling around the mountain slope – they would not be able to get back down to the lower camp and would have to endure an emergency overnight bivouac.
[39] On the tenth anniversary of the expedition the mountaineering journalist Nino Giglio published two articles in a Turin newspaper[note 16] basing his reports on interviews with Compagnoni and Lacedelli and said to be in response to Bonatti's book.
[46][47] Even before the time of the newspaper articles such rumours had been believed in some Italian mountaineering circles and Bonatti's 1961 book had been regarded as an untruthful attempt to cover up his misdeeds.
[53][54] After reading the book, an Australian surgeon, Robert Marshall, an armchair mountaineer who had long taken an interest in the K2 saga, began investigating.
Marshall thought that, when speaking to the inquiry in Pakistan, Desio had laid the blame on Bonatti (believing this to be properly deserved) but encouraged a bland report to be produced so that Italian honour would be maintained.
[55] In 1993 Marshall made a discovery of a photograph of Compagnoni (below) taken on the summit which had not been included in La Conquista del K2 where a much poorer image had been shown.
According to Marshall Compagnoni has his oxygen set on the ground but he is wearing his breathing mask with its connecting tube still attached to the cylinders.
[59] Bonatti published his second autobiography, Montagne di una vita in 1995 with Marshall's involvement who also translated the book as The Mountains of My Life in 2001.
It put forward his oxygen theory along with the photographic evidence and suggested the idea that Desio had believed the worst of Bonatti by accepting he had tried for a unilateral attempt on the summit, and treating him unfairly in the book while at the same time giving an account of a well organised expedition.
[61] Lacedelli, who had largely stayed out of the controversy, coincidentally published his own book K2: Il prezzo della conquista[62] in 2004, the fiftieth anniversary of the climb and quite shortly after Desio's death.
[63] Enrico Abram, a professional engineer who had been in charge of the expedition oxygen back in 1954 now wrote to Bonatti to say that the Italian cylinders had been leaking before the summit attempt.
[64][65] In 2004 Roberto Mantovani, editor of the prestigious journal Rivista delle Montagne and curator of Turin's Museo nazionale della montagna [it], with 24 eminent co-signatories, wrote an open letter to the CAI demanding an immediate inquiry so a report could be produced for the fiftieth anniversary celebrations.
[56] Mantovani himself wrote the section of the book which summarised the conclusions of the Tre Saggi and produced a new account of what was now accepted had happened on the mountain.
[66] In brief, this official account (upon which the 1954 Italian Karakoram expedition to K2 article is based) was that (1) Camp IX had been placed 250 metres (820 ft) higher than agreed and on the far side of difficult rocks; (2) Mahdi eventually lost fingers and toes due to severe frostbite caused by the enforced bivouac; (3) after the overnight bivouac Mahdi set off down before Bonatti; (4) Compagnoni and Lacedelli started ascending with supplementary oxygen at about 08:30; (5) they were using Dräger bottles which guaranteed a supply for twelve hours; (6) the summit was reached slightly before 18:00 when there would have been a reserve of oxygen of at least two and a half hours.
[70][71] A strong aspect supporting the revised account is the seeming unlikelihood of mountaineers carrying up empty oxygen sets when battling to reach an extreme summit.
