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Men Needed for a Dangerous Journey: Shackleton
"Men needed for perilous journey. Low wages, extreme cold, months of complete darkness, constant danger, return unharmed doubtful. Honors and recognition in case of success."
This newspaper ad received more than 5,000 applications to be part of this adventure. Eventually, a team of 56 men set sail from Great Britain for Antarctica in August 1914 aboard two ships: the Endurance and the Aurora.
The "Imperial Transantarctic Expedition", under the command of explorer Ernest Shackleton, intended to cross the Antarctic on a grueling 2,900km journey across the frozen continent via the South Pole.
On their voyage, conditions became increasingly difficult until in January 1915, the Endurance was pinned down on an ice floe. Spring and milder temperatures initiated movements in the ice that put their wooden hull in serious jeopardy.
In October, water began to penetrate the interior of the ship and Shackleton gave the order to abandon the Endurance completely, moving all men and supplies to an ice camp.
On November 21, 1915, the wreckage of the ship disappeared underwater forever.
Endurance shortly before sinking forever under the ice.
For nearly two months, Shackleton and his team camped on a large floating ice floe waiting for the currents to drift them towards Paulet Island, more than 400 km away, where they knew there were stores of supplies. They survived by culling the sled dogs they were carrying and hunting seals. After several failed attempts to reach the island through the ice, Shackleton decided to set up another permanent camp, which he named "Patience Camp" on another ice floe, and trust that the drift would bring them ashore.
But the ice floe broke in two and Shackleton ordered his team to board the lifeboats and set course for the nearest land. After five harrowing days on the water, the exhausted expedition members landed on Elephant Island, more than 550 km from where the Endurance sank. It was also the first time in 497 days that they had set foot on dry land
"To explore and investigate the unknown is in our nature. In fact, the real failure would be not to explore." E.Shackleton
The Endurance was an icebreaking brig that had been built in 1912 in a Norwegian shipyard. Her black hull looked similar to other ships but was designed to last in extreme polar weather conditions.
At the age of 16, Shackleton dropped out of school and enlisted as a cabin boy on a sailing ship with which he spent four years sailing around the world.
Elephant Island was an inhospitable place, far from any sea route, which is why Shackleton decided to risk a journey of almost 1,300 kms in an open boat of only 6 meters in length, with five members of his crew, to the whaling stations of the South Georgia Islands, where he knew he would find help.
After two weeks of sailing across the ocean, at the mercy of storms and hurricanes, they reached land on May 9. Shackleton decided to cross the island overland by a route never before traveled. In 36 hours they covered 51 km of mountainous terrain that separated them from the whaling station at Stromness, where they finally arrived on May 20.
- The Endurance was trapped in the ice near its destination in Vahsel Bay. —
- The crew abandoned ship and the expedition members had to make an epic journey by sled across the frozen Weddell Sea. —
- Elephant Island was an inhospitable place, far from any known sea route. —
- All the men of Shackleton's expedition returned to Britain alive.
Shackleton began organizing the rescue of the men left on Elephant Island, who had been marooned there for four and a half months. The Chilean tug Yelcho and the British whaler SS Southern Sky arrived at Elephant Island on August 30, 1916, and quickly evacuated the 22 men, who arrived in Valparaiso, where they were greeted as heroes.
The explorers, who had been stranded in Antarctica for more than two years, managed to all return alive thanks to Shackleton's leadership skills and vision, which eventually turned a failure into a heroic feat.
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