For a reason: during the Heroic Age, no less than 17 major Antarctic expeditions were launched from 10 different countries of the world. For 16 days, they battled monstrous swells and angry winds, baling water out of the boat and beating ice off the sails. Whalers there reported something portentous: the conditions in the Weddell Sea were the worst they could remember. And by “beautifully written,” we mean “written in a way they don’t write books anymore”: Lansing’s prose belongs more to the 19th century than to the modern age, but that should be off-putting only to those who, unlike the protagonist of the book, are not persistent and tenacious enough to swim through the breathtaking layers of meaning and reach the surface both richer and more perceptive.A classic of exploration literature, Endurance is a story of heroic failure, and since heroic failure touches people even more than heroic success, it’s bound to remain engraved in your memory for quite some time. During this time period,the Endurance is pummeled by enormous ice floes on a consistent basis, and ultimately is damaged beyond repair and sinks in November 1915. Eventually, they lost sight of land completely: in fact, due to the Weddell Sea current, they started circling back to South Georgia and they were further and further away not only from their target but also from any land whatsoever. “It is a return to the Ice Age—no warmth, no life, no movement. . They had been within a day’s sailing of their landing place; now the drift of the ice was slowly pushing them farther away with each passing day. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Shackleton joined the merchant navy at an early age and become obsessed with reaching Antarc-tica after he was forced to return home due to an illness on his way to Antarctica. His story is one of the human spirit in all its wonder and all its frailty. And with that, they turned north one last time and went home. The ship was made specifically for the purpose of travelling through Arctic conditions and waters, with a thick rounded hull for smashing through ice. Sir Ernest Shackleton. With Walter Modell, Lansing co-authored one of the last books from the Life Science Library, Drugs (1967). The extremely dangerous journey lasts for two weeks. It was during this trip that he, Scott, and another companion set a new southern record (82°S), which Shackleton would better just a few years later during the Nimrod expedition (88°S). Hundred years after the original expedition, Shackleton’s endeavor is even more interesting to people who investigate the traits and essence of great leadership. By late October 1915, still frozen immobile in the enormous ice pack, Endurance drifted over 500 nautical miles to the north-east. #BLACKFRIDAY 12min - Get your career back on track! That happened in December 1911, when a highly prepared Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen decisively beat the (ironically) better-remembered one led by a British Royal Navy Officer named Robert Falcon Scott. Now they had a new foe to contend with: the open ocean. His jaw was like iron. See why. But their ordeal was far from over. Explorer Frank Wild (1873 - 1939) looking at the wreckage of the Endurance, 1915. WATCH: Full episodes of History's Greatest Mysteries online now and tune in for all-new episodes Saturdays at 9/8c. The next day, the wind eased off and they made it ashore. Shackleton is not: he knows that this is merely the beginning of the rescue journey. 12min Team | Posted on November 7, 2019 |. “There is no good in deceiving ourselves any longer,” he wrote. Of all their enemies—the cold, the ice, the sea—he feared none more than demoralization. Endurance may have been the name of Shackleton’s ship, but it’s almost the strapline for his entire expedition, too. Soon after, to the dismay of the crew, the ice floe begins to break, and Shackleton has to plan a trip to some kind of a nearby land—using nothing more than three lifeboats. © 2021 A&E Television Networks, LLC. In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton led an expedition to Antarctica but soon after arrival, Shackleton's ship--The Endurance--was destroyed by shifting glaciers, and he was tasked with leading his 27 men across the tundra, on an epic struggle for survival. For several weeks, the ship poked and prodded its way through leads in the ice, gingerly making its way south; but on January 18, a northerly gale pressed the pack hard against the land and pushed the floes tight against each other. Finally, on October 27, 1915, a new wave of pressure rippled across the ice, lifting the ship’s stern and tearing off its rudder and its keel. The Endurance in young sea ice. During the months of May and June, using borrowed ships (Southern Sky, Instituto de Pesca No. Some of the younger dogs, too small to pull their weight, were shot, as was, to the chagrin of many, the unfortunate Mrs. Chippy. Frank Hurley/Royal Geographical Society/Getty Images. “In all the world there is no desolation more complete than the polar night,” writes Lansing. He had small hands, but his grip was strong and confident. Finally, the men reach the Stromness whaling station, and Worsley immediately sails back to pick up the three men left behind. We had reached the naked soul of man. They eat penguins and seals, occasionally killing dogs as well, to conserve food. Shackleton was bold and daring when approaching lords, kings, business men and physicians for sponsoring his voyage He was confident of his abilities as a leader Pictured to the right: Frank Worsley, Ernest Shackleton, and Tom Crean After the Voyage of the Endurance (1917) Endurance had left South Georgia for Antarctica on December 5, 1914, carrying 27 men (plus one stowaway, who became ship’s steward), 69 dogs, and a tomcat erroneously dubbed Mrs. Chippy. Grab a book and BOOST your learning routine. There was nothing else to do but to establish a routine and wait out the winter. He worked as a journalist for some time in Britain and was elected secretary of the Scottish Royal … However, in the decades that followed, things changed, and nowadays it is Scott whose heroism and leadership qualities are often questioned, while Shackleton’s name has become almost synonymous with the word “leadership.” Like this summary? Finally, on August 30, 1916, during his 4th rescue attempt aboard the steam tug Yelcho (loaned to him by the Chilean government), Shackleton reaches Elephant Island and rescues all 22 remaining members of his original expedition, 2 years and 22 days since leaving England. His father was a doctor. Relaying the James Caird across the ice, Antarctica, November 1915. He edited a weekly newspaper between 1946 and 1949, before joining the United Press and becoming a freelance writer in 1952. A voyage of this magnitude and consequence has never been attempted before. It will be a greater journey than the journey to the Pole and back, and I feel it is up to the British nation to accomplish this, for we have been beaten at the conquest of the North Pole and beaten at the first conquest of the South Pole. Unfortunately, just two days later it encountered the first ice pack on their journey. Sir Ernest Shackleton, the intrepid explorer, is best remembered for embarking on a fateful voyage aboard the Endurance in a bid to cross the Antarctic. Tom Crean, with a litter of sledge dog puppies on the Endurance. In March 1916, the ice floe where the Patience Camp is located successfully makes its way to about 60 miles from Paulet Island, but impassable conditions make floating to the island all but an impossible goal. A month later, on December 5, 1914, Endurance left South Georgia. The Patience Camp would be the crew’s home for the first third of 1916. Endurance was beset—in the words of one of the crew, Thomas Orde-Lees, “frozen like an almond in the middle of a chocolate bar.”. There now remains the largest and most striking of all journeys—the crossing of the Continent.”. 18° 22' W. We could have gone farther east, but the pack extended far in that direction, and an effort to circle it might have involved a lot of northing. There’s a reason why people remember Alfred Lansing for this book, and why they remember Shackleton’s failed expedition primarily through it: Endurance is an exceptionally researched and beautifully written book on a topic. However, when Amundsen reached the Farthest South latitude (90°S) on December 15, 1911, Shackleton was a bit shackled. 1, and Emma), Shackleton embarks on a series of unsuccessful rescue attempts to reach Elephant Island, where the other men of his crew have, in the meantime, all but given up on hope. Though remote and uninhabited, Elephant Island is much more reliable than a lifeboat or an ice floe, so the crew is happy and relieved. “Eagerly on the lookout for the relief ship,” recorded Macklin on August 16, 1916. About a day later, the three men are stirred to hear the sound of a factory whistle: A peculiar thing to stir a man—the sound of a factory whistle heard on a mountainside. Ernest Henry Shackleton was born on 15 February 1874 in County Kildare, Ireland. In a way, Shackleton used this to his benefit while soliciting funds for his Trans-Antarctic expedition, playing “heavily on this matter of prestige, making it his primary argument for such an expedition. Boost your life and career with the best book summaries. Born on February 15, 1874, in Ireland, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton is now widely considered one of the principal figures of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. The expedition intends to transverse the Antarctic continent by dog sledge. Unfortunately, they reach land there on the far side of the island. “Down into valleys, up to tossing heights, straining until her seams opened, swung our little boat.”. To make matters even worse, the ice had thickened in the meantime and Endurance had to endure much more pressure from the surrounding pack. After Roald Admunsen had reached the Pole, Ernest Shackleton was still craving an Antarctic quest, and set himself the challenge of being the first man to cross Antarctica, by land, through the South Pole, from the Weddell Sea to … Since the floe to which Shackleton’s crew had initially set a camp had also crumbled under pressure in the meantime, the crew had to relocate. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. So, merely a few days after reaching South Georgia, the exhausted Shackleton, Crean and Worsley—facing the fact that the James Caird is now too unseaworthy to use it to go round the island—set out on yet another dangerous and never-before-done journey to reach the Stromness whaling station by crossing South Georgia on foot! No matter what the odds, a man does not pin his last hope for survival on something and then expect that it will fail. All Rights Reserved. Ernest Shackleton, Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who attempted to reach the South Pole. But also, at this point, Shackleton’s crew’s only hope. Other caches of rations along the route would keep them supplied until they arrived at the McMurdo Sound base. It was almost as if he had nothing to accomplish anymore. Shackleton's battle against the odds and his unfailing commitment to bring all his men out alive turned him into a legend. Through it all, Captain Worsley navigated through the spray and the squalls, until after six days at sea, Clarence and Elephant Islands appeared just 30 miles ahead. We’… He was, above all, an explorer in the classic mold—utterly self-reliant, romantic, and just a little swashbuckling.”. During the next month or so, everything was stockpiled on the floe. Frank Hurley/Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge/Getty Images. Harvard Business School Case 803-127, April 2003. December 5, 1914, would be the last time Shackleton and his crew would touch land for the next 497 days. Ernest Shackleton never did reach the South Pole or cross Antarctica. He spoke softly and somewhat slowly in an indefinite baritone, with just the recollection of a brogue from his County Kildare birth. She was launched in 1912 from Sandefjord in Norway; three years later, she was crushed by pack ice and sank in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica. The 28 men spent months drifting on ice floes and traversing the Southern Ocean in … But, as Lansing says, “if it hadn’t been audacious, it wouldn’t have been to Shackleton’s liking. On April 9, it did just that, splitting beneath them with an almighty crack. Freezing water began to rush in. The Ross Sea party was to set down a series of food caches from their base almost to the Pole. From the Pole they would proceed to the vicinity of the mighty Beardmore Glacier where they would replenish their supplies at the southernmost depot laid down by the Ross Sea party. Shackleton—for reasons explained above—barely even took this into consideration. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. The goal of expedition leader Shackleton, who had twice fallen short—once agonizingly so—of reaching the South Pole, was to establish a base on Antarctica’s Weddell Sea coast. Welcome back to our series on the libraries of famous men.. Part of explorer Ernest Shackleton’s genius for leadership, was how keenly he understood the way in which idleness can destroy men’s morale.Thus when his ship, the Endurance, became stuck in pack ice en route to a planned Antarctic expedition, he didn’t let his men simply sit on their hands. South: The Endurance Expedition, by Ernest Shackleton. However, Alfred Lansing’s Heroic Age classic, Endurance, is not about Robert Falcon Scott—a celebrated hero of his day and age, but also someone whose leadership qualities and competence of character have been questioned in recent times—but about one of his officers during previous journeys, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton. And yet here they were: their hair and beards stringy and matted, their faces blackened with soot from blubber stoves and creased from nearly two years of stress and privation. Just eight years later, he died, aged 54. Frank Wild, Shackleton’s second-in-command, wrote that “at least half the party were insane.” Yet they rowed resolutely toward their goal, and on April 15, they clambered ashore on Elephant Island. On April 9, 1916, the ice pack breaks in two, and The James Caird, Stancomb Wills and Dudley Docker are launched for a voyage to Elephant Island, a remote and uninhabited island far from all shipping lanes. Against the advice of experienced whalers whom he meets in South Georgia en route to his destination, Shackleton proceeds with his plan to cross the Weddell Sea. With his death, Wild took the ship to Antarctica; but it proved unequal to the task, and after a month spent futilely attempting to penetrate the pack, he set a course for Elephant Island. Yet, after all that had gone before, this final task in many ways proved to be the most trying and time-consuming of all. In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton leads twenty-seven men on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Things took a turn for the worst when the news of Robert Falcon Scott’s tragic death reached England. Ernest Shackleton, like all of us, is as flawed as he is brilliant, or as flawed as he is effective. Nine days later, the ship (both prophetically and ironically—for reasons you’ll discover soon—named Endurance) reached the first stop of the journey: the Grytviken whaling station on South Georgia. “But to express all I feel is impossible.”. First discovered by a Russian expedition in 1820, the continent of Antarctica became an object of fascination for numerous explorers around the world during the last years of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century. But for them, it was the first sound from the outside world that they had heard since December 1914—seventeen unbelievable months before. “It’s time to get off.”. Filed under: History & Biographies, Leadership. The plan was to sail his ship, the Endurance, to Argentina, then on to Antarctica, then walk across the continent where another crew would pick them up. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Officers and crew of the Endurance pose under the bow of the ship at Weddell Sea Base during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914-17, led by Ernest Shackleton. After six miserable days, the three lifeboats land on Elephant Island on April 15, the first time that the 28 men touch solid ground after precisely 497 days! In the time that passed between abandoning Endurance and watching the ice swallow it up completely, the crew salvaged as many provisions as they could, while sacrificing anything and everything that added weight or would consume valuable resources— including bibles, books, clothing, tools and keepsakes. In 1914, a ship called Endurance set sail from Argentina. Though they had failed dismally even to come close to the expedition’s original objective, they knew now that somehow they had done much, much more than ever they set out to do. 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