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On August 1, 1914, on the eve of World War I, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his hand-picked crew embarked in HMS Endurance from London's West India Dock, for an expedition to the Antarctic. It was to turn into one of the most breathtaking survival stories of all time. Even as they coasted down the channel, Shackleton wired back to London to offer his ship to the war effort. The reply came from the First Lord of the Admiralty, one Winston Churchill: "Proceed." And proceed they did. When the Endurance was trapped and finally crushed to splinters by pack ice in late 1915, they drifted on an ice floe for five months, before getting to open sea and launching three tiny boats as far as the inhospitable, storm-lashed Elephant Island. They drank seal oil and ate baby albatross (delicious, apparently). From there Shackelton himself and seven others - the author among them - went on, in a 22-foot open boat, for an unbelievable 800 miles, through the Antarctic seas in winter, to South Georgia and rescue. It is an extraordinary story of courage and even good-humour among men who must have felt certain, secretly, that they were going to die. Worsley's account, first published in 1940, captures that bulldog spirit exactly: uncomplaining, tough, competent, modest and deeply loyal. It's gripping, and strangely moving.… (more)
User reviews
Nicely produced book with attractively textured cover. On the downside, the photo captions are too close to the gutter (I did not want to crack the spine to open it more) and I don't particularly like the choice of all caps, but that's a minor detail. Love the Bodoni typeface.
Now I want to know more about these men.
A quote, p. 39:
(after landfall on Elephant Island where most of the crew stayed while Shackleton and five others set off in the Caird lifeboat heading for South Georgia):
"Gales of wind off the ice-sheet blew almost incessantly. In one heavy gale sheets of ice 1/4 in. thick and 1 ft square were hurled about by the wind, making it dangerous to venture out.
After the tents were ruined we lived under the upturned boats. The aristocracy slept in their bags on oars and sledge-runners placed on the thwarts. On the dirt and blubber-caked shingle 3 ft beneath the rougher Bolshevik element insolently reclined. The swells above kocked out their pipes or dropped dirty socks on the lower classes. This sometimes caused a slight unplesantness which, fortunately, never culminated in a class war.
In that narrow gloomy space McIlroy and Macklin performed an amazing operation. They amputated Blackborrows' frostbitten toes, saving his foot and possibly his life.... Seriously, I was always sorry for the twenty-two men who lived in that horrible place for four months of misery while we were away on the boat journey, and the four attemps at rescue ending with their joyful relief."
This book, as all first-hand accounts of Antarctic exploration for the early 1900's, is amazing. What men these were, how courageous and just plain lucky to have survived their ordeal. By all accounts, Shackleton was a leader who inspired the best efforts of his men. That not one of his twenty-eight men perished in this remarkable journey is as unbelievable as the journey itself. If you have not read a first-hand account of these brave men, you own it to yourself to do so.
It was an incredible feat of seamanship and navigation rivaling Bligh’s famous voyage (another unsung hero - Hollywood has really done dirt to Blígh.) After reaching South Georgia in the midst of a hurricane, Shackleton and his men still had to cross a mountain range and glaciers to reach the whaling station at the north of the island. From there he returned to rescue the men left behind. With amazing luck (or competence, more likely) no man was lost.