In August 1914, the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914–16) left England under explorer Ernest Shackleton’s leadership. He planned to cross Antarctica from a base on the Weddell Sea to McMurdo Sound via the South Pole, but the expedition ship HMS Endurance was trapped in ice off the Caird coast and drifted for ten months before being crushed in the pack ice.

Ernest Shackleton

In 1900, no one knew if Antarctica was a continent or simply a polar ice cap anchored on an archipelago of islands. A competition between the Germans and the British launched what we know today as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. One of the fathers of the exploration was a former sailor in the British Royal Navy, Ernest Shackleton. He became obsessed with Antarctica when he pushed off on the British National Antarctic Expedition with Robert Scott and Edward Wilson. They made a sled journey over the Ross Ice Shelf before Shackleton’s health began to falter, and he was sent home in 1903.

Doomed Expedition

Of course, you can’t keep a good explorer home, and Shackleton put together a new expedition with a crew of 25 men and took the ship HMS Endurance to embark on what he called the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. After two others had already reached the South Pole, one of them being his old friend, Scott, he believed the only challenge left was to navigate across the entire Antarctic area and establish a base on the Weddell Sea coast. They set off from South Georgia island in 1914 despite warnings from whalers that the ice conditions in the Weddell Sea were some of the worst in memory.

Disaster struck in 1915 when the ship became trapped in the pack ice. The immobilized vessel floated along for ten months while crew members camped on ice floes and waited for their surroundings to thaw. But as spring arrived in September, the pressure of the shifting ice began to warp, crush and twist the boat’s wooden frame.

“She’s going, boys,” a crew member reportedly cried as the hull broke to pieces in October. “It’s time to get off.” The ship eventually slipped beneath the surface on November 21, 1915.

Shackleton’s subsequent voyage to rescue his crew went down in history as one of the most fantastic examples of grit, leadership, and luck in the annals of Antarctic expeditions. First, the crew survived a harrowing five days at sea to land three lifeboats at Elephant Island, where they set up a makeshift camp. Shackleton and five others then navigated a treacherous 800-mile journey on a small whaling boat to reach help on South Georgia island. Tragically, Shackleton died at the young age of 47 of a heart attack in his bunk in South Georgia, having never reached the South Pole. However, thanks to his efforts and those of his crew, all 28 men survived the ill-fated HMS Endurance and its doomed Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. 

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Resurrecting a Legend

While the exact location of the HMS Endurance has been a question in the minds of explorers all over the world, 107 years after it sank, we have our answers. In a search carried out by the Endurance22 Expedition and funded by an anonymous individual, their discovery puts an end to a century-old maritime mystery.

The mission’s leader, the veteran polar geographer Dr. John Shears, described the moment cameras landed on the ship’s name as “jaw-dropping.”

“The discovery of the wreck is an incredible achievement,” he added. “We have successfully completed the world’s most difficult shipwreck search, battling constantly shifting sea-ice, blizzards, and temperatures dropping down to -18C. We have achieved what many people said was impossible.”

In the most significant maritime discovery since the Titanic, the HMS Endurance was found in the Weddell Sea, 3,008 meters beneath the surface. The wreck itself is a designated monument under the international Antarctic Treaty and must not be disturbed. No physical artifacts have therefore been brought to the surface.

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