Nevertheless, he was hailed as a hero in Britain, and Shackleton was a forgotten man, an obscure officer in the Merchant Marine compared with the establishment man, the Royal naval Officer, Robert Falcon Scott. The establishment covered up Scott’s weakness and idolised his useless death in the race to the South Pole. Shackleton was an outsider, marginalized by the shady dealings of his brother Frank and he had great difficulty getting financial backers for his expeditions. In 1914 Shackleton succeeded in organising another Antarctic expedition. He managed to raise enough money for a ship, “The Endurance”, and picked 27 men to go on the expedition. One of those was Tom Crean of Annascaul, a veteran of Scott’s expeditions and a tower of strength all the way. Shackleton proposed to cross the Antarctic continent but he had no idea how to use dog-teams and he never learned to ski. It was a mad venture from the start, but it turned out to be one of the greatest feats of courage and endurance of all time. “The Endurance” fought her way through the pack ice of the Weddell Sea in January 1915. She had to be abandoned because she was crushed in the ice. They had no radio or means of communication with the outside world. Their situation looked hopeless. They were over a thousand miles from the nearest land. They salvaged three boats from “The Endurance” before she went down; the biggest was “The James Caird”, an open boat 22 feet long. The others were “The Dudley Docker” and “The Stancomb Wills”. All three boats were wooden open boats and totally unsuited to the savage seas of the Southern Ocean. The problem was to get them to the open water. They would be crushed like matchwood between the massive blocks of pack ice, some of which were fifty feet deep. The only hope was to haul them over the ice, a backbreaking job, but it was the only thing they could do. It took them two months to haul the boats and gear to open water. They had to haul and lift the boats over big uneven blocks of ice. The best clothing available at the time was reindeer skin with the hair still on. When this material got wet it was impossible to dry and the men were continuously drenched by mountainous waves and flying spray. Ropes and sails were covered in ice and the men had to climb into wet reindeer skin sleeping bags and try to sleep. Six hundred miles to the north lay Elephant Island and in spite of everything they reached it on April 116.
Elephant Island is a barren mountainous place covered in ice and snow. Nothing lives there except penguins and albatrosses – no human being could survive on its barren rocks. Shackleton decided the only hope was to sail to South Georgia where the Norwegians had a whaling station. South Georgia was eight hundred miles away to the East across the most dangerous sea in the world, the Southern Ocean. The “James Caird” was the biggest boast they had, to face the savage sea. But Shackleton decided the “Caird” was their only hope. The boat was fitted out as best they could and Shackleton picked Frank Worsley, Tom Crean, Timothy McCarthy, Archie McNeish and Joe Vincent to make the voyage with him. Their voyage is the stuff of legend. They had to contend with monstrous waves, drenching spray and crippling cold, frozen ropes and sails and starvation. Frank Worsley was picked because he could navigate and it is a tribute to his extraordinary skill that he found a tiny speck on a vast ocean under terrible conditions. Apart from navigating, keeping the little boat afloat and surviving the murderous seas was a feat of seamanship that will never be surpassed. Shackleton was an inspiring leader. He looked after his men like a mother looks after her children and he always remembered that the lives of 22 men he left behind on Elephant Island depended on him. After terrible hardship that would destroy lesser men, the “Caird” reached South Georgia in May 1916
But their troubles were not yet over. They had landed on the Western coast of the island and the whaling station Grytviken, is on the Eastern side. In between is a range of ice and snow-covered peaks. Shackleton, Worsley and Crean set off to cross the mountains. After twenty-two miles of battling with ice, snow, cliffs, glaciers and icy rivers they reached the whaling station at 6.00a.m. one morning. They were so dirty, ragged and hairy that the first Norwegians that they met ran away in sheer terror. When they had rested and regained their strength, the three men went back to the western shore and rescued those that were left behind. The Norwegians were magnificent. They made the men welcome and provided a ship to get them to Chile; Shackleton didn’t forget his men on Elephant Island. Over two years he made three attempts to rescue them but the ships were turned back by pack ice. The men on the island survived on hoosh, a yellow mixture of many ingredients, on albatross chicks and eggs from the nests, and on seals they killed. At least they were on dry land and had a certain amount of shelter from the wind and waves and every man firmly believed that Shackleton wouldn’t let them die. Shackleton persuaded the Chilean navy to make the final attempt to rescue the men. The Chilean ship managed to find a passage through the pack ice. Shackleton watched through his binoculars as the men ran through the surf to climb aboard the rescue launches. Not a man was lost.
Shackleton and Scott lived in the Golden Age of exploration when very little was known of remote regions of the world. Today we would regard them as foolhardy to face the rigours and the dangers of the unknown with the primitive equipment they had at their disposal but they had undoubted courage and determination.
Scott became the hero of the Antarctic, even though Shackleton’s reputation is growing as we learn more and more of his exploits.
A few years later Shackleton returned to South Georgia. While there he suffered a massive heart attack and died. He is buried on a barren hillside near Grytviken – the true hero of the Antarctic. His boat “The James Caird” is on display in Dulwich College in England, his old school, a tribute to a great hero and a sea voyage that will never be forgotten.