Chapter 18.

"After the conquest of the South Pole by Amundsen who, by a narrow margin of days only, was in advance of the British Expedition under Scott, there remained but one great main object of Antarctic journeys - the crossing of the South Polar continent from sea to sea". With these words Ernest Shackleton made clear why he turned back to Antarctica in 1914. It would result in a legendary expedition, an incredible adventure that would give Shackleton eternal glory.

Shackleton would sail to Antarctica with two ships. The final destination of the Endurance was the Weddell Sea. There Shackleton and his party would start their crossing of the continent. The other ship, the Aurora (sailing from Tasmania), would navigate to Cape Royds in the Ross Sea, where six men would lay depots on the Ross Ice Shelf for Shackleton’s trans-continental party coming from the other side.


Sir Ernest Shackleton

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition almost failed to happen. On 1 August 1914, when the Endurance was ready to leave, Great Britain declared war on Germany. Winston Churchill, who was then the minister of the Marine, sent Shackleton a telegram saying “Proceed”. And so, on 8 August 1914, the Endurance left the port of Plymouth with 28 men and 69 dogs onboard. After having spent a month in the whaling station Grytviken on South Georgia, the ship reached the Weddell Sea on 7 December. For the next six weeks the Endurance sailed south. From time to time they didn't find a passage and were forced to turn back to search for another passage. But on 19 January 1915 the ship got trapped in the ice. Along with the pack ice, it floated away from land. June came, meaning the darkest time of the year was starting. There was no light except for the moon and a couple of hours of twilight at noon. The pressure of the pack ice kept threatening their ship, but it always managed to resist. But on 27 October it was all over. The ice won the battle and the water streamed inside. Everyone was ordered to leave the ship.

For the next days, everyone tried to save the necessary things from the ship: food, clothes, fuel... They built a camp, Ocean Camp, on a large floe. Shackleton was hoping that the drift of the pack ice would lead them to Paulet Island. On 21 November 1915 the Endurance sank completely under the ice. Shackleton realised that they would never reach Paulet Island, because the wind always seemed to be changing directions. He therefore decided to walk to the land, but they only managed to cover less than 15 kilometres in one week. Even though it was summer, the pack ice didn’t break. Shackleton gave up and ordered to build a new camp, Camp Patience. 27 dogs were shot because they weren't of use anymore. At the end of February the hungry men saw some Adélie penguins - 300 of them were caught, their mean was eaten and their skin was used as fuel for the furnace. On 30 March the remaining dogs were shot.

On 8 April the ice broke at last. Their three life boats were immediately placed in the water: the James Caird (big whaling raft), the Dudley Docker and the Stancomb Wills (smallest and least seaworthy boat of them all).

James Caird

After a terrible journey the three boats reached Elephant Island and the exhausted men went ashore. For the first time since 5 December 1914 (497 days earlier) they were back on firm land. Some of the men were had extremely bad conditions: Pierce Blackborrow and Herbert Hudson were severely frostbitten, and Louis Rickinson had had a heart attack. However, being on Elephant Island didn’t mean they were saved at all. Shackleton decided to take the James Caird and sail to South Georgia to look for help, taking five men with him: Frank Worsley, Tom Crean, Henry McNish, Timothy McCarthy and John Vincent. The distance between Elephant Island and South Georgia was more than thousand kilometres, and the men had to withstand wind forces of 120 kilometres per hour and waves that were more than eighteen meters high. In addition their destination was a tiny island. The only navigation tools they had were a sextant, a chronometer and a compass. In short, it was an impossible mission. Frank Wild became the leader of the men who stayed on Elephant Island.


Point Wild, Elephant Island

The journey to South Georgia was indeed awful. They had to compete against the huge waves and at the same time keep on course. If they missed South Georgia, they were most definitely lost. On 30 April a gale sprang up. The temperature dropped and the water in the boat and every wet piece of wood, sail and rope froze immediately. The six men had to pick away the ice as soon as possible, if not their boat would sink due to the weight. On 2 May Shackleton noticed a line of clear sky behind him and yelled that the weather would at last clear up. However, what he saw was not a rift in the clouds, but the white crest of an enormous wave. They managed to survive this, but it took over an hour to bail. On 7 May McCarthy saw land - they had finally reached South Georgia. Because of the severe weather conditions they couldn't reach Grytviken, and went ashore on the opposite side of the island. After a few days of rest Shackleton, Crean and Worsley decided to cross the mountainous island, which no one had ever done before. After a long and tiring trip they reached the whaling station, where the director, the Norwegian Thoralf Sørlle, welcomed them. The men who stayed behind at the other end of the island were picked up. Now only the group on Elephant Island had to be rescued.

The 22 men on Elephant Island had built a hut by placing the two life boats upside down on wall of brick of one meter high. For four months they waited there impatiently to be rescued, and became worried. They didn't know if Shackleton was still alive. On 30 August 1915 they saw a ship in the distance. It was the Yelcho, a little, steel tug boat that the Chilean government provided Shackleton with to rescue the men on Elephant Island.

The Aurora

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition failed completely. At the other side of Antarctica the Ross Sea Party commanded by Aeneas Mackintosh would lay food depots for the transcontinental party of Shackleton. But everything went different than planned...


The Aurora

The Aurora reached the McMurdo Sound in 1915. Because of the pack ice it was impossible to sail directly to Hut Point. The ship anchored at the sea ice, about 15 kilometres from Hut Point. At the end of January Mackintosh, Ernest Joyce, A. Jack, Irvine Gaze, Ernest Wild (the brother of Frank Wild) and Arnold Patrick Spencer-Smith left to lay the food depots. Meanwhile J. Cope, A. Stevens, Ninnis, V. Hayward, Lionel Hooke and Dick Richards tested the motor tractor, without much success. Mackintosh’s party’s journey was tough: the snow was too soft and the dogs were not in form, so the men hardly proceeded. To make matters worse they had to cope with blizzards. On 10 February Mackintosh decided to go further only with Joyce, Wild and the best dogs. He sent the remaining men back to Hut Point. The three men suffered from frozen limbs, but nevertheless they succeeded to accomplish their task and on 25 March they were back at Hut Point. Only Cope, Hayward and Jack were present - the rest had been picked up by the Aurora. The ship had sailed to Cape Evans and had put four men ashore: Stevens, Spencer-Smith, Gaze and Richards. The ship was a little bit further attached to the sea ice. They didn't hurry with unloading the supplies, which was a mistake. On 6 May there was a terrible gale blowing. When the four men ashore woke up the next morning, not only the ice, but also the ship was gone. The gale kept blowing, so they gave up the hope to see the ship ever again. They were convinced that the Aurora was wrecked. On 2 June the six men of Hut Point reached Cape Evans and the four men who lost their ship. The ten men were now in serious trouble. Most of the food, clothes and material was still on the Aurora. No matter how, the party still had to lay food depots for the transcontinental group of Shackleton.


Spencer

In September all supplies were transported to Hut Point. In November nine men left from there to lay food depots again. Once again, the weather was bad. Because there were only four dogs left (Oscar, Con, Gunner and Towser), the journey was very exhausting. At 80° South Mackintosh sent Cope, Gaze and Jack back. On 18 January 1916 Spencer-Smith began to suffer from swollen legs and said that he could not continue anymore. He proposed to wait in a tent, while the others continued further south. One week later they came back to pick up Spencer-Smith, but he still couldn't walk. He was then pulled in a sleeping bag on a sledge. On the night of 8 March 1916, Spencer-Smith said he felt peculiar, and died a few moments later. He was buried in the snow. Three days later the party reached Hut point – there mission was successful. However, they had risked their lives to lay food depots for no one.

The hut in Hut Point was not very comfortable, which is why they wanted to go to Cape Evans, where Stevens, Cope, Gaze and Jack were. On 8 May Mackintosh and Hayward left Hut Point to make an effort to reach Cape Evans. They were never seen again, because during their trip a gale sprang up. The ice that they had been walking on was blown into the open sea. The others only reached Cape Evans on 15 July 1916. The seven men were picked up in January 1917 by the Aurora. Ernest Shackleton was also on board.

On 6 May 1915 a blizzard had blown the Aurora out from the McMurdo Sound. The ship was stuck and floated together with the pack ice. The Aurora resisted the heavy pressure of the ice. It managed to free itself on 14 March 1916. It was impossible to navigate back to the McMurdo Sound, so Joseph Stenhouse, who was in command, set sail to New Zealand. In December Shackleton came to New Zealand to help with the rescue operation.