Episode 20: Shackleton
If there was ever a man with a sense of adventure and a roaming spirit, it was Earnest Shackleton.
Earnest left school at the age of 16 to join the Merchant Navy. After that, he spent four years learning his trade as an apprentice on a square-rigged sailing ship.
He then trained to be an officer, working his way up through the ranks. In 1898 he earned his master mariner certificate and got a job as an officer on the Union Castle line.
He primarily did the sailing route between London and South Africa. Shackleton was a man of resolute character.
And just a few weeks ago, we were reminded of the perseverance of Shackleton and his crew.
SHOW NOTES:
:10 Shackleton’s Younger Life
:40 The Discovery of the Endurance
On March 5th, 2022 scientists amazingly discovered Ernest Shackleton’s research ship Endurance at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. It is sitting over three kilometres below the surface and is beautifully preserved in the icy cold waters of the Antarctic.
The name of the ship, ENDURANCE, sits silently and plainly beneath the surface, as if she knew that they would find her, one hundred years and two months after Shackleton’s death.
Beneath the ship’s name, as bold as brass, is Polaris, the five-pointed star. A beacon to guide the expeditioners searching for endurance. The expedition’s archeologist, Mesen Bound stated that “You can see a porthole that is Shackleton's cabin. At that moment, you really do feel the breath of the great man upon the back of your neck."
The wreck is a designated monument under the international Antarctic Treaty and must not be disturbed in any way.
Nothing has been taken from the ship and it will remain in peace at the bottom of the sea as an enduring reminder of Shackleton and his astonishing adventures.
2:07 The Man Behind the Story
But it wasn’t just the adventures we should remember of Shackleton, but his character and skill as well.
Earnest Shackleton led naturally. He socialized with his crew members every evening after dinner, leading sing-alongs, jokes, and games, but didn’t play games to hirearchy.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard gave a good assessment of Shackleton’s character: If I am in the devil of a hole and want to get out of it, give me Shackleton every time.
3:00 1901 - RSS Discovery
In 1901 Earnest Shackleton got the chance to join Robert Falcon Scott’s National Antarctic Expedition and sailed aboard the RSS Discovery as third officer in charge of stores.
During this crusade, Scott selected Shackleton to take part in a sledging trek towards the South Pole. The expedition party came within 480 miles of the Pole, which was 300 miles closer than anyone before them, but severe conditions and snow blindness, frostbite and the onset of scurvy required the crew to turn back.
During the trip Shackleton also suffered from heart and lung conditions, and much to his disappointment he was invalided home.
3:40 Shackleton Returns to England
Once Shackleton returned, he tried out several jobs, but couldn’t settle. Nothing seemed to quite fit and live up to the adventures he experienced in the antarctic.
He ended up working for the wealthy Clydeside industrialist William Beardmore. After their relationship grew, Beardmore agreed to fund Shackleton’s British Antarctic Expedition.
Beardmore’s wife Elspeth had a bit of a passion for Shackleton. It is believed that her influence and enthusiasm helped Beardmore release the funds.
4:07 The Nimrod
Shackleton set off in 1907 in the Nimrod, a converted Dundee sealing ship.
His plan was to reach the South Pole with the aid of an Arrol-Johnston motorcars, a company owned by Beardmore, and a team of Manchurian ponies. Both means of transport failed to live up to expectation and the men were forced to try their best dragging their sledges on foot.
Their pursuits brought them closer than 100 miles to the South Pole, but food shortage forced them to turn back. Despite failing to reach the Pole, the expedition had made many important discoveries.
Shackleton was sanguine about not reaching the pole, despite being so close. During this expedition, Shackleton acquired the nickname 'the Boss' due to his leadership qualities.
The expedition returned home in 1909.
5:15 The Boss
King Edward VII knighted Shackleton who was now a national hero and icon.
But home didn’t quite feel like home after his explorations. Again, Shackleton failed to settle into any kind of normal job.
Despite telling his wife that he planned to remain home for good with no desires whatsoever to return to the south, inside, Shackleton itched to get back to Antarctica.
6:00 The Next Great Adventure
In 1911 the Norwegian explorer Amundsen narrowly beat Scott to the South Pole
This event sparked Shackleton’s vision that his next great adventure would be to complete a crossing of the Antarctic continent. The expedition was madness, the papers reported it to be a longer journey than to the Pole and back, and infinitely more difficult.
7:15 The Women Applicants
Days later he was inundated with offers of people wanting to take part, including previous crewmen from the Nimrod and the Discovery expedition.
Famously he also got the following offer of support from three eager women, unfortunately he turned them down
8:00 All Male Crew
Instead he chose an all-male crew – even Mrs Chippy, the ship’s cat, was male!
Shackleton selected Frank Worsley and explorer and sailor from New Zealand as his ship’s captain.
8:15 The Ship
The ship he chose for the expedition had been built in Norway as a luxury polar tourist vessel, but due to the financial difficulties of its owners was never used. It was robustly designed to cope with extreme polar conditions and said to be one of the strongest wooden ships ever built.
It was designed with great strength in its hull in order to resist collision with ice floes and to break through pack ice by ramming and crushing. It had three masts and a small coal-powered steam engine.
The ship was originally called Polaris, but Shackleton renamed it Endurance after the Shackleton family motto "By endurance we conquer”. It was refitted and modified for the expedition – the luxury cabins were removed to make more space for stores and equipment.
9:20 Setting Sail
Endurance set sail in August 1914 on the eve of the First World War.
Immediately Shackleton offered the ship to the Admiralty. But within an hour, they received a response from the admiralty, simply telegrammed ‘proceed’.
Within two hours Winston Churchill himself reached out, thanking Shackleton and his crew for their offer, but that he desired the expedition carry one. At midnight that very evening, war commenced.
9:50 They Reach the Sea
When the Endurance reached the Weddell Sea in December, they found that it was a particularly bad year for pack ice and by mid-January the ship had become trapped in the ice.
For months the ship was stuck fast, and they had no choice but to drift with the flow.
What once appeared an easy one day sail to reach their destination, slowly dwindled out of sight as the ice pushed them further and further away.
Gradually the force and the pressure of the ice bent and buckled the ship’s structure.
By November the masts were toppled and then on 12 November, over a year after their departure, a final pressure wave in the ice struck and in the space of a minute the Endurance sank below the ice.
11:25 The Escape
All thoughts now turned to escape, but managing to do that would be another challenge altogether.
The crew salvaged provisions, and ridding themselves of anything that carried weight.
They had departed with 69 dogs and Mrs. Chippy, the tomcat, but a few of the smaller dogs, and the tomcat, to the dismay of many, would be shot as they could not pull their weight.
They disposed of bibles, books, clothing and tools, knowing that when their escape chance came, they wanted as little weight with them as possible.
The initial plan was to march across the ice to land, but the mission was abandoned after a seven day trek where progress was only a mile a day.
They men were forced to camp out on the floe until conditions turned in their favour.
12:30 The Crew of the Endurance head to Elephant Island
And while the men were finally free of the ice, they now faced a new foe, the open ocean.
The goal to reach Elephant Island didn’t necessarily equate to a rescue either, Elephant island was an isolated piece of rock far from any shipping lanes with no chance of the men being discovered. It took the men 7 hard days of icy weather to escape the ice and make it to Elephant Island.
The elements were rough, icy, and biting. The seas pitched turbulently, making brave men who suffered much already, cower in fear.
The didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, and dissenters and seasickness ran rampant through the crew. The finally reached elephant island, on April 15th, but their journey was far from over.
It was the first time any of the men had touched dry land in 497 days.
13:40 Departure to South Georgia
Shackleton decided that the only way to rescue everyone was to set off to South Georgia, which was 800 miles away from their current location.
After only 9 days of recouperation and preparation, Shackleton, along with Worlsey and 4 other men embarked on this perilous voyage in a 22-foot open boat.
For 16 days Shackleton and his men battled at sea.
They beat ice off the sails and ship and passed through miserable bouts of sea and waves.
The wind ripped the tops off of waves - it seemed there was no end in sight, even though land could be seen in the distance.
Finally the wind eased and the crew reached shore, happy to be alive, but conscious the work was still not over.
14:30 South Georgia Trekking
There remained 22 men on Elephant Island to Rescue.
Their landing in South Georgia put them on the uninhabited south of the island. Shackleton, Worsley and one other man set off to search for the whaling station to raise the alarm and alert the need of the 3 men who remained behind there and the 22 others on Elephant Island.
It took the squad of men another 36 hours of desperate hiking to finally stagger into Stromness, shocking the manager and was recalled by a Norwegian whaler, Thoralf Sorlle.
When Thoralf heard Shackleton speak his name, he turned around and wept.
15:22 Rescuing the 22 Men on Elephant Island
This final task of rescuing the 22 men who hadn’t stayed with Shackleton, would in many ways prove to be the most difficult.
Back on Elephant island, every morning Frank Wild, the man Shackleton left in charge, would issue the call for everyone to “lash up and stow their belongings” - any day could be the day their commander returned. It took Shackleton three attempts to get back to the men he left behind.
The first ship ran perilously low on fuel while navigating the ice pack and the circumstances forced them to return to the Falkland Islands. Uraguay then released a vessel to Shackleton that came within 100 miles of reaching elephant island, but in the end became inhibited from the icepack.
The men on Elephant Island grew increasingly dispirited. They grew sullen and doubtful that rescue would ever arrive. They believed no good remained in deceiving themselves in a non existent rescue further than they already had.
But Shackleton procured a third ship. A ship that would finally return him to his men.
On August 30, 1916, the epic saga of the Endurance and its crew ended. 128 days passed between Shackleton’s departure and return. 20 months after the initiation of their expedition to the Antarctic, all crew were rescued and safe.
Not one man lost his life.
17:15 Shackleton’s Final Adventure
After the war Shackleton set off on one final adventure to the Antarctic.
By the time his ship reached South Georgia he was feeling unwell and on 5 January 1922 he died of a heart attack.
He was then buried at Grytviken in South Georgia on 5 March 1922.
One hundred years later, the endurance was found.
