The Voyages
People of Aurora: F. D. Fletcher
AAE position: First Officer of S.Y. Aurora for the second two AAE voyages
IN THEIR WORDS
He was a most efficient and conscientious officer and seaman who at first sight might have been taken for the prototype of the perfect “Bucko”, that semi-legendary figure sometimes described as having ‘a jaw like a sea boot’. – Davis, J.K., High Latitude, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1962, p 196
Fletcher joined Aurora as first mate when she reached Hobart after her first Antarctic voyage, taking over from Toutcher whom Davis considered a ‘hopeless fool’. Davis recorded in his diaries that he was ‘shaping very well indeed…a live man instead of such a hopeless fool as the last man’. [Davis diaries]
