Shackleton: survival against the odds
Published in 1919, South is a book by Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) describing his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 to 1917. Having already travelled with Captain Robert Falcon Scott, located the South Magnetic Pole and reached a new farthest south latitude of 88°23′ S on the Polar Plateau, his next goal – after the South Pole was reached by Roald Amundsen in 1911 – was to cross Antarctica from sea to sea, via the pole.
He left Plymouth on August 1914, but disaster hit in January 1915 when his ship, the Endurance, became trapped in and, after ten months of slowly drifting in ice, sank in the Weddell Sea. Shackleton and his crew spent months on a large, flat floe hoping it would get them to the nearest storage hut, but when it broke in two they had to get into lifeboats and head towards the nearest land. After five days they reached the inhospitable Elephant Island.
Being rescued by chance was very unlikely: the island was far from any shipping routes. Shackleton decided then to strengthen one of the lifeboats and risk the journey, along with five brave companions, to one of the South Georgia whaling stations which was about 800 nautical miles away. After seventeen days of navigation in an open boat, facing gales, snow squalls and large waves, they reached South Georgia’s uninhabited southern coast.
The three fittest men, Shackleton, Crean, and Worsley, took on a further 30 miles across the island’s glaciated surface with minimal equipment, using screws from the lifeboat hammered into their boots to serve as crampons. Following an hazardous 36 hour journey they reached a manned whaling station. Due to the advent of the southern winter and adverse ice conditions it took four attempts over three months to finally rescue the 22 men stranded on Elephant Island.1
Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.
Sir Raymond Priestley, in his 1956 address to the British Science Association.
Safe return doubtful << Shackleton: survival against the odds <<>> The star taker
- E. Shackleton, South: The Story of Shackleton's 1914–1917 Expedition (London: William Heinemann, 1922).
