Ernest Shackleton, an undeniably brave explorer, labored under a terrible ambition for nearly two decades: the desire to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Repeatedly thwarted by the elements, then finally beaten by the Norwegian adventurer Roald Amundsen, Shackleton revised his objective in 1912. He would be the first, he decided, to complete "the crossing of the South Polar Continent, from sea to sea."
Shackleton planned to take his ship, Endurance, to the Weddell Sea and from there set out on foot across the polar plateau; he and his party would be supplied at depots set out by another exploring party. Shackleton never arrived at those depots; Endurance was crushed by sea ice, its sailors marooned for months of endless winter. Unaware of Endurance's fate, the 10-man supply party set out on the other side of the continent and discharged their duties without complaint. In the process, three of them died after crossing hundreds of miles of unforgiving, storm-blasted ice.
"Their sacrifice," writes Lennard Bickel, "became a footnote in history and was forgotten, even though Shackleton himself summed up their long agony by saying that 'no more remarkable story of human endeavour has been revealed than the tale of that long march'." Bickel's thoughtful history gives these courageous explorers their due, and it provides a valuable addition to the library of Antarctic travel. --Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
Ernest Shackleton's 1915 attempt to cross the Antarctic continent and his dramatic 800-mile open boat journey to find help when his ship was crushed by pack ice in the Weddell Sea, have been thoroughly chronicled (e.g., by Shackleton himself in South and by Roland Huntford in Shackleton). But Shackleton's fame has overshadowed the efforts of men who risked, and even gave, their lives to help him attain it. Drawing on research and reporting, Bickel (Mawson's Will) tells of the small party that set out from the other side of Antarctica that year to lay invaluable food depots for the explorers who would never come. Marooned when their ship was ripped from its moorings by a fierce polar gale, the group had to haul hundreds of pounds of food for themselves and the six members of Shackleton's party across 2,000 miles of frozen wasteland without proper equipment or any idea if they would be rescued. Bickel draws on the men's personal diaries and on lengthy interviews recorded in the late 1970s with the only survivingmember of the group in order to infuse the book with staggering details of the party's fight with scurvy and subzero cold. The characters, ranging from the prudent Ernest Joyce to the group's impetuous one-eyed captain, Aeneas Mackintosh, are surprisingly well developed, and Bickel graphically paints their plight, describing "haggard, dirty men, faces black from weeks of hugging the blubber stove, beards matted, here and there the scars of recent frostbite, and their clothes reeking of the smelly fat of the seals that had saved their lives." Balanced, vivid and informative, Bickel's work ensures that the duress endured by these men will not soon be forgotten. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review
...it is more than a tale of survival against the odds...it is about the triumph of the human spirit.
Sir Ernest Shackleton
No more remarkable story of human endeavor has been revealed than the tale of that long march.
Publisher's Weekly
Bickel's work ensures that the duress endured by these men will not soon be forgotten.
Book Description
The drama of Shackleton's Antarctic survival story overshadowed the other expedition. Launched by the famous explorer (and led by Captain Aeneas Mackintosh), its purpose was to lay supply depots across the Great Ross Ice Shelf in preparation for the Endurance expedition. Despite completing the longest sledge journey in polar history (199 days) and enduring near unimaginable deprivation, this heroic band accomplished much of their mission, laying the way for men who never came. All suffered; some died. Now Australian writer Lennard Bickel remembers these forgotten heroes in a gripping account that fills in a little-known and ironic piece of the Shackleton puzzle. Largely drawn from the author's interviews with team member Dick Richards, this retelling underscores the capacity of ordinary men for endurance and noble action.
Shackleton's Forgotten Men: Untold Tale of an Antarctic Tragedy FROM THE PUBLISHER
When Ernest Shackleton resolved to cross Antarctica in 1915, he knew the task would require two parties of men. The first crew, led by Shackleton himself, aimed to cross the continent - but met with disaster when their ship, the Endurance, was frozen into the ice of the Weddell Sea." "Meanwhile, a second group - the Ross Sea party, led by the impetuous one-eyed captain Aenaes Mackintosh and the hard-headed Ernest Joyce - landed on the opposite side of the continent. Their mission: Haul sledges almost 2000 miles across the harsh interior to leave food for the coming Shackleton party. Like the men of the Endurance, the second group also lost their ship, the Aurora - along with their supplies - when a fierce polar gale ripped the ship from its moorings. But Mackintosh and his men, who believed that their failure would doom Shackleton's party to starvation, refused to give up. They scavenged supplies from a previous expedition led by Robert Scott and set out upon one of the greatest journeys in polar history. While their achievement was futile - Shackleton never came - the story of Mackintosh and his men stands to rival those of explorers such as Robert Scott, Apsley Cherry-Garrard or Shackleton himself." "Lennard Bickel bases this account on expedition diaries as well as original interviews with the last survivor of the Ross Sea party.
SYNOPSIS
To cross Antarctica on foot in 1915, Shackleton needed two groups: his, to make the journey across, and another to land on the other side so as to leave supplies at various points for Shackleton's party. Shackleton's group was, however, wiped out, their ship crushed by ice in the Weddell Sea. The second party's ship, the Aurora, was also destroyed along with the supplies while moored on the opposite side in McMurdo Sound. The resourceful second party, however, scavenged supplies from previous expeditions and made their journey, leaving as much as possible for Shackleton's men. Three of their number perished along the 2000-mile, bonechilling, scurvy- stricken journey. Shackleton's party was, of course, never found. Lacks notes and index. Bickel's seven books include Facing Starvation and Mawson's Will. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Ernest Shackleton's 1915 attempt to cross the Antarctic continent and his dramatic 800-mile open boat journey to find help when his ship was crushed by pack ice in the Weddell Sea, have been thoroughly chronicled (e.g., by Shackleton himself in South and by Roland Huntford in Shackleton). But Shackleton's fame has overshadowed the efforts of men who risked, and even gave, their lives to help him attain it. Drawing on research and reporting, Bickel (Mawson's Will) tells of the small party that set out from the other side of Antarctica that year to lay invaluable food depots for the explorers who would never come. Marooned when their ship was ripped from its moorings by a fierce polar gale, the group had to haul hundreds of pounds of food for themselves and the six members of Shackleton's party across 2,000 miles of frozen wasteland without proper equipment or any idea if they would be rescued. Bickel draws on the men's personal diaries and on lengthy interviews recorded in the late 1970s with the only survivingmember of the group in order to infuse the book with staggering details of the party's fight with scurvy and subzero cold. The characters, ranging from the prudent Ernest Joyce to the group's impetuous one-eyed captain, Aeneas Mackintosh, are surprisingly well developed, and Bickel graphically paints their plight, describing "haggard, dirty men, faces black from weeks of hugging the blubber stove, beards matted, here and there the scars of recent frostbite, and their clothes reeking of the smelly fat of the seals that had saved their lives." Balanced, vivid and informative, Bickel's work ensures that the duress endured by these men will not soon be forgotten. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Marjory Raymer - Foreword (February)
"Out of whose womb came the ice?
And the hoary frost of Heaven, who hath gendered it?
The waters are hid as with a stone,
And the face of the deep is frozen."
Sir Ernest Shackleton ripped the page containing that verse from the Book of Job to carry with him as his team fled Endurance (Ital), when finally the ice mercilessly crushed the ship that had delivered him to the Antarctic. The ship's death officially killed his plans for a trans-Antarctic march once hoped to bring fame to him and honor to England.
The great failure still won Shackleton great glory. The limelight greeted him after his now infamous 1916 journey across 800 miles of ocean in a desperate effort to save the lives of his stranded crew of explorers. At the bottom of the earth, however, Shackleton had another, separate crew facing its own mission, grave hardships and adventurous struggle for survival.
This crew was the umbilical cord for the record-setting march Shackleton never began. Ten men set out from the opposite side of the Antarctic to deliver food and supplies on which the record-setters would sustain themselves during the latter half of their voyage. The support crew trudged nearly 2,000 miles in their quest to keep the glorious mission alive - unaware of its ill-fated start. Shackleton's Forgotten Men is their horrific story of honor, duty and sacrifice.
Bickel tells this tale with the endearing respect, insight and meticulousness of a caring chronicler, as the following passage illustrates. "The precious food hauled by starving men is still where they left it, buried with the carcasses of a dozen faithful dogs, buried beneath the eternal snows and blizzard winds of more than eighty Antarctic winters."
Expert research allows Bickel to walk readers through this ungodly journey, detailing both foolishness and bravery. He extensively borrows from the men's own diaries to provide first-hand accounts of the events on the great ice reefs.
"There was no conversation on the trail. Each step forward was a little advance on the last ... all our energies were needed for the job in hand. The silence was profound; the soft crunch of feet in the snow, the faint swish of the sledge runners serving merely to emphasize that silence," Dick Richards, the youngest of the men at twenty-two and their eventual leader, wrote of one day's toil.
Three men died from their efforts; all suffered profoundly. At times even laughter hurt because it strained the mass of blisters almost unrecognizable as their faces. As they carried hundreds of pounds of food, they starved with sometimes just a half a dog biscuit serving as a meal as they dutifully set out rations for Shackleton's forlorn gotten group.
Their stomachs often empty, gums and joints turning black from scurvy and snowblindness plaguing them, they soon found even rest provided no comfort. "They crawled in their bags that night, their underwear soaked with sweat that turned to ice and spent restless hours with the temperature dropping to 36 degrees of frost."
Each of the ten chapters in Shackleton's Forgotten Men ends with a short update on Shackleton himself and his more famous plight. With pure sorrow, again and again readers are reminded of the folly behind these slavish efforts to lay deposits of food across half the Polar continent.
The book also includes an interesting analysis from another Antarctic explorer, Sir Vivian Fuchs, who lead the first successful crossing of the continent more than forty years later in 1958. His review of Shackleton's plans concludes that even if Endurance (Ital.) had avoided the crushing ice, Shackleton and his men still likely would have failed and probably perished in their ill-conceived journey.
Crew member Richards in 1976 when he was eighty-four years old gave Bickel his memories of the struggle the men faced from Christmas 1914 until seven were saved on January 10, 1917. He calls their mission a success, because the crew accomplished its mission to deposit the food. "That the effort was unnecessary, that the sacrifice was made to no purpose, in the end, was irrelevant ... It was
something that the human spirit accomplished."
Shackleton's Forgotten Men leaves readers with the ultimate discovery that these men's honor shines more brightly than even blazing glory. Bickel brings the story of these ten men into the forefront and out of the footnote with a powerful tale he shows never should have been overlooked.
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