The death of Alan Reece in an aircraft accident in the Canadian Arctic in May 1960 came as a shock to his many friends in the glaciological, geological and polar spheres.
He was a Londoner born and bred who had an absorbing interest in wide fields of polar work. After experience in the meteorological branch of the Royal Navy during the war he joined the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey. He spent 1945 in charge of the base at Deception Island and 1946 at Hope Bay, where his glaciological interests developed. He joined the British Glaciological Society in 1947 as a founder member, while he was studying for a degree in Geology at Imperial College where he obtained his B.Sc. in 1949 and Ph.D. in 1958.
As a member of the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1949–52 his hard work and drive in arranging the details of stores and equipment were much appreciated as were his frank and lively comments, and his capacity for friendship. After writing up expedition equipment reports he spent three years in Uganda as a geologist before returning to polar regions in the summers of 1956 and 1957 as a field geologist in East Greenland. In 1959 he joined the prospecting firm of J. C. Sproule and Associates in Canada. While working from Resolute on Ellesmere Island on 28 May on 1960, his light plane landed to help another plane down on the sea ice. Whiteout conditions which had developed at the time caused his plane to crash during the return to Resolute.
The loss of Alan Reece while engaged on active polar work will be mourned by his many friends in the Society, whose sympathy goes out to his wife and baby daughter.
