Dr. John Shears, coauthor of the new National Geographic book and film, ENDURANCE: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Legendary Ship, talks passionately about Ernest Shackelton’s harrowing survival story and the incredible rescue of all 27 crew member. He also discusses his mission to locate, film, and survey the wreck of Shackleton’s lost ship, the Endurance.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back to What's at Risk. I'm Mike Christian. Doctor
John Shears was the expedition leader for Endurance twenty two,
the mission to find Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance. He is
a respected polar geographer and expedition leader with more than
(00:26):
thirty years of experience of working in both Antarctica and
the Arctic. Doctor Shears was awarded the Polar Medal by
Her Majesty the Queen in twenty nineteen in recognition of
his outstanding achievement and service to the United Kingdom in
the field of polar research. In twenty twenty three, Doctor
Shears became a visiting professor in the School of Geography
(00:49):
and Environmental Sciences at the University of Southampton. He lives
near Cambridge in the UK. Our guest today is John Shears,
co author of the new National geographic book Endurance, The
Discovery of Shackleton's legendary Ship. How you doing, John, I'm
(01:13):
very fine, Thanks very much. Thank you for joining. Maybe
a good place to start would be for you to
tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Okay, So my name is Dr John Shears and I'm
a pane geographer, an expedition leader. I'm British, live near
Cambridge in England, and I was lucky enough to be
the expedition leader for the Insurance two two expedition which
found Shackleton's legendary ship Endurance deep under the ice. In
the well Seat on the fifth of March twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Sir Ernest Shackleton was an English Irish explorer who led
the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition, which set out to make
the first land crossing of Antarctica. Maybe just to give
everyone a little background on this story, can you talk
a little bit about how that expedition came about and
what was the motivation and what was kind of the
(02:06):
background of that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Okay, So Shackleton started his parallel career. He was in
the Merchant Navy and he applied to join Captain Scott's
first expedition, which is called the Discovery Expedition, and he went.
He tried to get to the South Pole with Scott,
but he got very badly sick on the journey and
for part of the journey had to be carried on
(02:29):
the sled and pulled by Scott another man called Edward Wilson.
So Scott belided him home for that expedition. I don't
think Shackleton never forgave Scott and decided that he'd run
his own expedition. So he then went to Antarctica and
what's called the Nimrod expedition in nineteen oh six, and
it became world famous because they got within ninety seven
(02:51):
miles of the Pole before they had to turn back,
made the first ascent of Mount Erebus, an active volcano
in Antarctica, and they discovered thousands of miles of new
land in Antarctica. So when he got back, he was
knighted by the king and was one of the most
celebrated men of the age. And he still wanted to
(03:14):
be the first to get to the South Pole, but
of course he was beaten by Abanson December nineteen eleven,
and they, of course Scott tried to get there, got there,
but then died on the return journey in January nineteen twelve.
So for Shackleton, really the last massive exploration that he
could do would be to be the first to cross Antarctica.
(03:35):
So that's what that was the primary own of the
Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition that Shackleton would be the first
man to cross the continent continent and he'd go from
the Weddell Sea across by the South Pole and then
exit the Ross Sea. So that was the aim of
the expedition. He had two ships. One was the Endurance,
which would take Shackleton and a team of twenty eight
(03:58):
into the Weddle Sea, and then another party led by
a nas McIntosh would come in from New Zealand come
into the Rossia and they lay depots to help Shackleton
on his way. Because he couldn't take all the food
and fuel that he would require to do the complete crossing,
he would need to collect depots wanted got past the pull.
So that was the aim. But the incredible part of
(04:20):
the survival story is that, of course Shackleton never set
foot in Antarctica, never got to Antarctica at all. His
landing point at Vassal Bay. He got within about one
hundred miles of Vassel Bay and got the Ensurance got
stuck in the sea ice and then it was this
epic story of survival.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
And so the ship with the crew on board, it
was just sort of drifted for months right before it Ultimately, yes.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
They got set in the ice on the eighteenth of
January nineteen fifteen, and then they drifted with the ice.
So in the well I see it's this clockwise gyre
or current which circulates in the Wellow Sea, and that
started to drift the ship up towards the north. And
although the ensurance was extremely well built and she was
(05:04):
brand new, this is her maiden voyage. She was built
in Norway by expert ship rights and designed to go
into ice, but not the really heavy eyes that we
see in the world. We'll see. So she gets trapped
to the ice and gradually she gets crushed, and on
(05:24):
the twenty seventh of October nineteen fifteen, Sheuckton decides to
abandon the ship and they go and live on the ice.
But the ship doesn't sink until the twenty first November
nineteen fifteen, so they're always going back to the ship
to try and salvage items from it which will help
them survive. And then the ship finally sinks in the
twenty first November nineteen fifteen, and then it's an epic
(05:45):
story of survival because they have to camp on the
ice for months. And then as they drift north north,
the ice begins to melt and to recede and they
take to their lifeboats and have three lifeboats which they've
taken with them off the ship, and they sail and
roll these lifeboats. They end up at a place called
Elephant Island. They get to land, but it's well off
(06:08):
any shipping routes. The only people who might come and
save them are whalers, maybe from South Georgia, but they
don't go in that particular area of Antarctica. So Shackleton
decides to take one of the lifeboats of the biggest
lifeboat with James Kid twenty two foot long wooden lifeboat,
and he decides to sail it all the way from
Elephant Island to South Georgia, where he knows that he
(06:31):
can find help. And it's the most epic journey of
a small boat journey eight hundred miles across the treacherous
Southern Ocean. It's a miracle that they didn't buy. And
I still find it staggering that they survived. I think
been in both the world Obsea and the Southern Ocean
(06:52):
many times during my working career. You know, I've seen
what the Southern Ocean will be like, and it's not
it's not nice, it's not pleasant and they manage incredibly
in a small lifeboat to get to South Georgia, but
they land on the wrong side and there are no
whaling stations on the western side where they land, and
the men are too exhausted, and he takes two of
(07:14):
the fittest men, Captain Frank Worsers the Captain Le Durrance,
and navigated them in the James Krety takes him and
as one of the toughest sailors and Irish men called
Tom Cream, and they walk across South Georgia in a
fast trek non stop thirty six hours. They walk across
(07:35):
South Georgia and they finally get to a place called
Stromnst Whaling Station and they get there on the twentieth
and May nineteen sixteen, and that's where he manages to
raise the alarm, but it's not until on his fourth
rescue attempts. He had three goes all failed because of
the ice, but on his fourth rescue attempt, Shackleton finally
gets back to the men on Elephant Island and they're
(07:57):
rescued on the thirtieth of August nineteen sixteen, and amazingly,
they're all still alive, so Shackleton and all twenty seven
men survived to tell the tale. So an epic story
of survival in Antarctica.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, and an epic story of leadership. Chackleton is known
as one of the greatest leaders of all time. Right,
just to be able to bring that crew through so
it was such extraordinarily hostile conditions and keep them all alive,
it's an amazing story.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
It is amazed. And yes, and his leadership, particularly on
the ice, keeping those men together, I am incredibly But
one of the things that he always said to the many,
and the value that he held in the highest esteem,
is optimism. That the men had to be optimistic that
(08:48):
they were going to get out of this paralleous situation.
And they all knew that they had to trust him
to do that and to work together as a team.
So it's yeah, it's a great story of leaders but
it's also a great story of how people can work
together as a team.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Right. And the fact that they captured the story with
photographs was even has made it more iconic because people
can actually see what was going on as they were surviving. Right.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yes, that's right. So Shackleton, even back in nineteen fifteen,
he realized the power of photography and taking movie film.
There was actually a very early movie film called South
which the astronim phtographer Curly took. Because the expedition was
so well documented by Hurley, both in photography and with film,
(09:36):
and also the men. Shackleton instructed all the men to
write diaries, so you can still see all the original diaries,
and the combination of the diaries with the photography and
the film means the whole expedition is extremely well documented.
And it was certainly accessing those archive records which helped
(09:56):
us to locate his ship over one hundred years later.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, that's fascinating. It was an age of adventurism, right,
and heroes which we maybe don't have as much these days.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, well, we have different sort of heroes these days.
They played football in the NFL. But in those days,
the po polar explorers like Shackleton and Scott and Amanton,
they were the big celebrity stars of the day, be
followed back by the press wherever they went. Yes, it's
(10:29):
interesting to see how things have changed.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
The path for sure. For sure. Well, let's fast forward
to recent times twenty twenty two and talk about the
expedition that you were on to seek the search for
the wreck of the Endurance, and that was the Falkland's
Maritime Heritage Trust. Is that the organization that organized that.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
That's right. So the Falklands Mount Meritigstress, they funded and
managed the expedition and I was expliciently who took the
team down into Antarctica. So I've been to Antarctica well
over thirty times. Spent twenty five years working at the
British Antarctic Survey and then with the scott Premier Research Institute.
(11:13):
So I've been into the Word'll Sea many times because
there's a British Antarctic Surveys station on the eastern side
of the Weddell Sea on the Brunt Eye Shop. It's
called Halle. So I've been so I knew, I knew
what the ice conditioners were like, and I'd actually followed
part of the track of the Ensurance of an exposition
team of sixty five and then we had forty five
(11:33):
ship's crew on a South African ice bracket called the
Say a Goodness Too, and we took with us a
crack subseed engineering team from a company called Deep Ocean Search,
assisted by another company Coronation Authinity, and these guys are
absolutely world experts locating rex and doing deep deep sea projects.
(11:56):
So my job as an exposition of leading was to
give us all on site onto the search area and
then the subseam led by Nico Vincent, who is the
co author with me on the book. They would then
take control to put their marine robots down under the
ice down to search for the Endurance. So Endurance is
very deep. She's only a little bit shallower than Titanic,
(12:20):
so she's at about ten thousand feet. The difference to
Titanic to what we were trying to do is that
the world I'll see is so cold that the sea freezes,
so you have to break into the ice. So all
around the Endurance reck side you've got sea ice which
(12:42):
is anywhere between one to five meter stick, and if
you hit a ridge with it where the ice flows collide,
that can be up to about fifteen meter stick. It's
a very difficult place to get to, and I've been
one of those very lucky few too have actually done that,
and it is an amazing experience to actually walk where
Shackleton would have walked a hundred years ago. Because the
(13:04):
conditions that they're very similar, very similar. You know, it
really gives you an appreciation of what those men went to.
After me walking on the ice, I can go back
to a nice one ship, have something to eat, get
warmed up. But you think about those men, know that
they were having to live in little flimsy tents, eat seals,
(13:25):
penguins all the time, worried that they're going to run
out of field and staff. It gives you a very
different perspective on what it must have been like to
have actually been there and seen it for yourself.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, and even the technology for clothing, I'm sure wasn't
They didn't have the water.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah, that's a good point because in those days they
wore burbery bery created them special gaberdine clothing, cloth clothing,
none of the synthetics that we get today. That they
would have relied on this gabardine out of clothing and
then woolen sweaters underneath, whilst we could have multiple layers
(14:03):
use the latest technology for that clothing keep us nice
and warm, particularly the guys working on the back deck
on the subseding. They're out there for six eight hours
at a time, and we had temperatures dropping down to
about minus eighteen degrees centigrade. For the time you've got
wind blowing over the back deck, that wind chill factor
(14:25):
was getting down to minus twenty to minus twenty five
degrees centigrade. So as expension leader, I had to make
sure that no one got hypothermia, frost nit or even
worst case frostbite.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Right, and for those of us that think in fahrenheit terms,
that's even a bigger number, a bigger minus number, right, Yeah, Yeah,
those are tough conditions. And so you had a general
sense of where the ship was I assume, right, and
then used some submersible technology to be able to actually
find it.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
You know, the records at the Scott Polar Research Institute
were a mental We could examine Chapleton's diary, but particularly
worse these diary and his log books. So we had
a and he gave an estimated position of where the
ship sank, and from that we could create a search
box around the wreck, which was developed by the experts
at Deepatient Search led by NICKA. Vincent. We found the
(15:20):
ship literally right at the end of the expedition. We'd
only perhaps got another two maximum three days on site
because we were running out of charter time on the ship.
But also the weather conditions were changing and the sea conditions,
so all around the ship, the temperatures were really falling
very quickly, and we were getting sea ice forming around us.
(15:42):
So I knew that we'd have to call it a
day very very very soon. So I was actually thinking
that we would not find the wreck. So it was
a huge surprise. Yeah, absolute joyous moment when we actually
found the wreck on the fifth of March.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Hey, you didn't want your ship to meet the same
fades the endurance, right.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah, yeah, wellship getting stuck. Ship, ship design and technology
is very different now and absolutely amazed that's is a
very powerful icebreakers still hold, so we wouldn't have been crushed.
But if the ice conditions got really bad, we could
get stuck and you know, and then that would require
(16:25):
another ship to come to our aid.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Right now, the ship itself was was in remarkably good condition,
isn't that correct? I think I saw some picture. Yeah,
was still sitting upright on the on the ocean floor.
It's pretty amazing picture. It is amazing. So yeah, if
you get to look at the book National Geographic have
just published. It was published on the fifth of November.
(16:50):
So he's got some beautiful pictures of the wreck.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And yes, I think, I think, you know, she was
strong and she might be one in one, but other
experts have said now she was crushed to smithereens like
match sticks and there won't be anything left. So it
was wonderful to see her sitting on the sea floor.
You know, it's one of the memories that I'll keep
(17:15):
with me to till I die, when I first see
the amazing video imagery that they called her. The wreck
where you can still see the original paint on the
vessel is still there. You can see a whole range
of artifacts are still there, beautifully preserved, like leather boots,
there's a telescope, there's a flair pistol, the anchors are
still there, and particularly at the stern the aft of
(17:40):
the vessel that really didn't get that crushed in the ice,
so that's beautifully preserved. The ship's wheel is still in place.
They changed to the rudder are still there. You can
even see the glass porthole into Shackleton's cabin. Shackleton just
his main cabin was just off that.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
It's sitting on his desk.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yes, what was he what was he reading before the ship?
Speaker 1 (18:07):
So what was that day like when you when you
found the ship? It must have been pretty euphoric for
you and the and the rest of the crew.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, well I didn't know because I was I was
so worried we'd have to end the expedition. I wanted
a bit of time off the ship to clear my head.
So I went off the ship with marine archaeologist and
director Expression ments and bound and the ship was locked
into big ice floes. The guys were diving with Maon robot,
which a saber tooth. So I took took the opportunity
(18:37):
to take Menton off the ship and in the ice
flow beside us was a big iceberg locked into the
the floe very spectacular. So I took Menton for a
walk around the iceberg. So we went out, walked around.
As we were coming back and really talking through how
we were going to end the search, how we're going
to break the news to the subs team and the crew,
(19:01):
the ship or the sponsors. By this time, we had
this huge social media following me. Several million people were
following us on social media. How are we going to
break the news that we hadn't found anything, and we
were going to be coming back empty handed. So and
as we're coming back to the ship, my mood had
lifted and I said to Menson that today's going to
(19:24):
be a really good day. By this time, they'd found
the ship and they were going absolutely berserved on the
back deck trying to call me, Menson and with no
luck because I was on the safety channel. So we
come back onto the ship and then Nico calls me
on the radio and then and I'm says, can I
come up to the bridge straight away? And then Nico
(19:45):
he often wants to play a bit of a joke,
so he's sitting up on the bridge looking very very
said and not giving anything away at all, and I
thought it really was bad news. So we go up
to and said, you know what going on? What's happened?
And he just shows us his iPhone and says, gentlemen,
(20:06):
let me introduce you to the Endurance. And that was
absolutely incredible. I never thought that we were going to
find the vessel. So if you watch the movie, If
you watch the movie, and National Geographic has got a
movie which is now streaming on Disney Plus Lulu, you
can see my reaction, which is a huge combination of relief, happiness, joy,
(20:30):
incredulity that we've found the ship. It was an amazing,
amazing moment, It really was, because I never thought we
were going to find it.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
That's that's tremendous and so a bit of a celebration.
But you had to leave pretty quickly, right, You couldn't
stay much. Yeah, we couldn't say, you couldn't period. So
the guys have found the ship. They found it using sonan.
Basically they're using sound waves to map the sea floor.
So to get the amazing imagery the podographs that you
(21:00):
see in the book, they needed to change out the
sonar put in very high resolution cameras, so we now
have a three D model. We basically fly around the
wreck and look at it at one millimeter resolution. It
really is quite incredible. And in the book, there's a
gatefold to the book and you can pull it out
(21:21):
and look at the plan view of the wreck and
see some of these things lying on the deck, pots
and pans, boots, the rigging, the ship's wheel. There's even
a life vest that you can see. These amazing artifacts
are still on the deck of the ship. It's incredible
(21:44):
to see it and all in this amazing condition because
the conditions in the world see as such that it's
very cold. Is it's one point eight to be centigrade
at that depth. Of course it's dark. No light can
penetrate that far are. It's way too deep to be
(22:04):
hit by icebergs, by the keels of icebergs. But probably
more importantly, the currents there are very very slow, so
nothing will get washed off. But perhaps the most important
reason is that because it's so cold there and so remote,
that many of the organisms which would consume wood in
(22:25):
more temperate waters just can't exist in the very cold
waters of Antarctica. So for example, if you go if
you dive on the Titanic, now there's no wood on
the Titanic. It's all been consumed by bacteria or wood
boring worms, and you don't find those in Antarctica. So
that's why, that why Ensurance is in such good condition.
(22:47):
People like links and bound on me archaeologist Nico Vincent
or subseam management, they've got decades of experience of working
on wooden REGs and it's by far and away the
most preserved wooden wreck they've ever seen in their lives.
It really is quite incredible. Yeah, that's fair, So perfect
(23:07):
conditions for preservation.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Yeah, so what's very interesting again, good bye the book.
You'll see that there's a picture taken by Frank Hurley
and photographer. He takes the last photo of the joints
on the eighth of November nineteen fifteen. And if you
strip away that ice that's in the photograph and then
compare it to how she looks on the seafloor, it
(23:31):
really is. It's just as if she sank yesterday. She
is in incredible condition. You can relate everything you can
see on the Hurly photograph to how the ship looks
like on the sea floor now one hundred and nine
years later.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, that's fair, that's amazing. That's great. Is the last question?
Whatever happened to Shackleton.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
When they finished the Endurance Expedition. You know, the First
World War was still raging, so all the men enlist
and in fact two of them die within weeks of
coming back. They're torpedoed and die on board ships. And
Hurley becomes a war for top He actually become a
quite a famous wharf for the First World War, and
Shakato goes off to the to fight on the Russian Front,
(24:14):
but he can't really when the war finishes, he can't
really settle at home. He does the lectures and gets
his book out and the Purley's documentary South is broadcast.
He doesn't really settle when he decides that he's going
to have another expedition, so it's called the Quest expedition.
He didn't really have much of an objective. He was
(24:34):
going to sail around Antarctica and survey some of the
remote sub Antarctic islands. And he gets as far as
South Georgia, and he's a very young man. He's still
very young, he's only forty seven, and in the very
early hours of the fifth of January nineteen twenty two,
has a massive heart attack at South Georgia and he dies,
(24:59):
but the Cress Expision still continues under his deputy. Frank
Wild had been his deputy on the Insurance expedition, so
in his memory they continue the expedition, but Wild decides
to return the body to his wife, Lady Emily Shackleton,
back in the UK. He takes one of the metrologys
something Leonard Hussei goes with the body against Montevideer and
(25:22):
Lady Chackleton says, now she wants the body return to
South Georgia, the scene of Shackleton's greatest triumph. So they
bring the body back, and then amazingly that the burial
of Shackleton at South Georgia takes place on the fifth
of March nineteen twenty two, and we found the ship
(25:43):
the ship on the fifth of March twenty twenty two,
exactly one hundred years later.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
We've been talking to doctor John Shear's co author of
the new national geographic book Endurance, The Discovery of Shackleton's
Legendary Ship. It's also a film streaming now. So John,
thank you so much. That was just a fascinating interview
and the story. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Mike. Well, that's all for this week. I'm Mike Christian,
inviting you to join us again next week on What's
at Risk. Also check out our podcast at Wbznewsradio dot
iHeart dot com what's on your mind? Send us your thoughts,
(26:32):
comments and questions to What's at Risk at gmail dot com.
That's one word, What's at Risk at gmail dot com.
Thank you, A big thank you to our producer Ken
Carberry of Chart Productions.
Welcome back to What's at Risk. I'm Mike Christian. Doctor
John Shears was the expedition leader for Endurance twenty two,
the mission to find Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance. He is
a respected polar geographer and expedition leader with more than
(00:26):
thirty years of experience of working in both Antarctica and
the Arctic. Doctor Shears was awarded the Polar Medal by
Her Majesty the Queen in twenty nineteen in recognition of
his outstanding achievement and service to the United Kingdom in
the field of polar research. In twenty twenty three, Doctor
Shears became a visiting professor in the School of Geography
(00:49):
and Environmental Sciences at the University of Southampton. He lives
near Cambridge in the UK. Our guest today is John Shears,
co author of the new National geographic book Endurance, The
Discovery of Shackleton's legendary Ship. How you doing, John, I'm
(01:13):
very fine, Thanks very much. Thank you for joining. Maybe
a good place to start would be for you to
tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Okay, So my name is Dr John Shears and I'm
a pane geographer, an expedition leader. I'm British, live near
Cambridge in England, and I was lucky enough to be
the expedition leader for the Insurance two two expedition which
found Shackleton's legendary ship Endurance deep under the ice. In
the well Seat on the fifth of March twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Sir Ernest Shackleton was an English Irish explorer who led
the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition, which set out to make
the first land crossing of Antarctica. Maybe just to give
everyone a little background on this story, can you talk
a little bit about how that expedition came about and
what was the motivation and what was kind of the
(02:06):
background of that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Okay, So Shackleton started his parallel career. He was in
the Merchant Navy and he applied to join Captain Scott's
first expedition, which is called the Discovery Expedition, and he went.
He tried to get to the South Pole with Scott,
but he got very badly sick on the journey and
for part of the journey had to be carried on
(02:29):
the sled and pulled by Scott another man called Edward Wilson.
So Scott belided him home for that expedition. I don't
think Shackleton never forgave Scott and decided that he'd run
his own expedition. So he then went to Antarctica and
what's called the Nimrod expedition in nineteen oh six, and
it became world famous because they got within ninety seven
(02:51):
miles of the Pole before they had to turn back,
made the first ascent of Mount Erebus, an active volcano
in Antarctica, and they discovered thousands of miles of new
land in Antarctica. So when he got back, he was
knighted by the king and was one of the most
celebrated men of the age. And he still wanted to
(03:14):
be the first to get to the South Pole, but
of course he was beaten by Abanson December nineteen eleven,
and they, of course Scott tried to get there, got there,
but then died on the return journey in January nineteen twelve.
So for Shackleton, really the last massive exploration that he
could do would be to be the first to cross Antarctica.
(03:35):
So that's what that was the primary own of the
Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition that Shackleton would be the first
man to cross the continent continent and he'd go from
the Weddell Sea across by the South Pole and then
exit the Ross Sea. So that was the aim of
the expedition. He had two ships. One was the Endurance,
which would take Shackleton and a team of twenty eight
(03:58):
into the Weddle Sea, and then another party led by
a nas McIntosh would come in from New Zealand come
into the Rossia and they lay depots to help Shackleton
on his way. Because he couldn't take all the food
and fuel that he would require to do the complete crossing,
he would need to collect depots wanted got past the pull.
So that was the aim. But the incredible part of
(04:20):
the survival story is that, of course Shackleton never set
foot in Antarctica, never got to Antarctica at all. His
landing point at Vassal Bay. He got within about one
hundred miles of Vassel Bay and got the Ensurance got
stuck in the sea ice and then it was this
epic story of survival.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
And so the ship with the crew on board, it
was just sort of drifted for months right before it Ultimately, yes.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
They got set in the ice on the eighteenth of
January nineteen fifteen, and then they drifted with the ice.
So in the well I see it's this clockwise gyre
or current which circulates in the Wellow Sea, and that
started to drift the ship up towards the north. And
although the ensurance was extremely well built and she was
(05:04):
brand new, this is her maiden voyage. She was built
in Norway by expert ship rights and designed to go
into ice, but not the really heavy eyes that we
see in the world. We'll see. So she gets trapped
to the ice and gradually she gets crushed, and on
(05:24):
the twenty seventh of October nineteen fifteen, Sheuckton decides to
abandon the ship and they go and live on the ice.
But the ship doesn't sink until the twenty first November
nineteen fifteen, so they're always going back to the ship
to try and salvage items from it which will help
them survive. And then the ship finally sinks in the
twenty first November nineteen fifteen, and then it's an epic
(05:45):
story of survival because they have to camp on the
ice for months. And then as they drift north north,
the ice begins to melt and to recede and they
take to their lifeboats and have three lifeboats which they've
taken with them off the ship, and they sail and
roll these lifeboats. They end up at a place called
Elephant Island. They get to land, but it's well off
(06:08):
any shipping routes. The only people who might come and
save them are whalers, maybe from South Georgia, but they
don't go in that particular area of Antarctica. So Shackleton
decides to take one of the lifeboats of the biggest
lifeboat with James Kid twenty two foot long wooden lifeboat,
and he decides to sail it all the way from
Elephant Island to South Georgia, where he knows that he
(06:31):
can find help. And it's the most epic journey of
a small boat journey eight hundred miles across the treacherous
Southern Ocean. It's a miracle that they didn't buy. And
I still find it staggering that they survived. I think
been in both the world Obsea and the Southern Ocean
(06:52):
many times during my working career. You know, I've seen
what the Southern Ocean will be like, and it's not
it's not nice, it's not pleasant and they manage incredibly
in a small lifeboat to get to South Georgia, but
they land on the wrong side and there are no
whaling stations on the western side where they land, and
the men are too exhausted, and he takes two of
(07:14):
the fittest men, Captain Frank Worsers the Captain Le Durrance,
and navigated them in the James Krety takes him and
as one of the toughest sailors and Irish men called
Tom Cream, and they walk across South Georgia in a
fast trek non stop thirty six hours. They walk across
(07:35):
South Georgia and they finally get to a place called
Stromnst Whaling Station and they get there on the twentieth
and May nineteen sixteen, and that's where he manages to
raise the alarm, but it's not until on his fourth
rescue attempts. He had three goes all failed because of
the ice, but on his fourth rescue attempt, Shackleton finally
gets back to the men on Elephant Island and they're
(07:57):
rescued on the thirtieth of August nineteen sixteen, and amazingly,
they're all still alive, so Shackleton and all twenty seven
men survived to tell the tale. So an epic story
of survival in Antarctica.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, and an epic story of leadership. Chackleton is known
as one of the greatest leaders of all time. Right,
just to be able to bring that crew through so
it was such extraordinarily hostile conditions and keep them all alive,
it's an amazing story.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
It is amazed. And yes, and his leadership, particularly on
the ice, keeping those men together, I am incredibly But
one of the things that he always said to the many,
and the value that he held in the highest esteem,
is optimism. That the men had to be optimistic that
(08:48):
they were going to get out of this paralleous situation.
And they all knew that they had to trust him
to do that and to work together as a team.
So it's yeah, it's a great story of leaders but
it's also a great story of how people can work
together as a team.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Right. And the fact that they captured the story with
photographs was even has made it more iconic because people
can actually see what was going on as they were surviving. Right.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yes, that's right. So Shackleton, even back in nineteen fifteen,
he realized the power of photography and taking movie film.
There was actually a very early movie film called South
which the astronim phtographer Curly took. Because the expedition was
so well documented by Hurley, both in photography and with film,
(09:36):
and also the men. Shackleton instructed all the men to
write diaries, so you can still see all the original diaries,
and the combination of the diaries with the photography and
the film means the whole expedition is extremely well documented.
And it was certainly accessing those archive records which helped
(09:56):
us to locate his ship over one hundred years later.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, that's fascinating. It was an age of adventurism, right,
and heroes which we maybe don't have as much these days.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, well, we have different sort of heroes these days.
They played football in the NFL. But in those days,
the po polar explorers like Shackleton and Scott and Amanton,
they were the big celebrity stars of the day, be
followed back by the press wherever they went. Yes, it's
(10:29):
interesting to see how things have changed.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
The path for sure. For sure. Well, let's fast forward
to recent times twenty twenty two and talk about the
expedition that you were on to seek the search for
the wreck of the Endurance, and that was the Falkland's
Maritime Heritage Trust. Is that the organization that organized that.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
That's right. So the Falklands Mount Meritigstress, they funded and
managed the expedition and I was expliciently who took the
team down into Antarctica. So I've been to Antarctica well
over thirty times. Spent twenty five years working at the
British Antarctic Survey and then with the scott Premier Research Institute.
(11:13):
So I've been into the Word'll Sea many times because
there's a British Antarctic Surveys station on the eastern side
of the Weddell Sea on the Brunt Eye Shop. It's
called Halle. So I've been so I knew, I knew
what the ice conditioners were like, and I'd actually followed
part of the track of the Ensurance of an exposition
team of sixty five and then we had forty five
(11:33):
ship's crew on a South African ice bracket called the
Say a Goodness Too, and we took with us a
crack subseed engineering team from a company called Deep Ocean Search,
assisted by another company Coronation Authinity, and these guys are
absolutely world experts locating rex and doing deep deep sea projects.
(11:56):
So my job as an exposition of leading was to
give us all on site onto the search area and
then the subseam led by Nico Vincent, who is the
co author with me on the book. They would then
take control to put their marine robots down under the
ice down to search for the Endurance. So Endurance is
very deep. She's only a little bit shallower than Titanic,
(12:20):
so she's at about ten thousand feet. The difference to
Titanic to what we were trying to do is that
the world I'll see is so cold that the sea freezes,
so you have to break into the ice. So all
around the Endurance reck side you've got sea ice which
(12:42):
is anywhere between one to five meter stick, and if
you hit a ridge with it where the ice flows collide,
that can be up to about fifteen meter stick. It's
a very difficult place to get to, and I've been
one of those very lucky few too have actually done that,
and it is an amazing experience to actually walk where
Shackleton would have walked a hundred years ago. Because the
(13:04):
conditions that they're very similar, very similar. You know, it
really gives you an appreciation of what those men went to.
After me walking on the ice, I can go back
to a nice one ship, have something to eat, get
warmed up. But you think about those men, know that
they were having to live in little flimsy tents, eat seals,
(13:25):
penguins all the time, worried that they're going to run
out of field and staff. It gives you a very
different perspective on what it must have been like to
have actually been there and seen it for yourself.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, and even the technology for clothing, I'm sure wasn't
They didn't have the water.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah, that's a good point because in those days they
wore burbery bery created them special gaberdine clothing, cloth clothing,
none of the synthetics that we get today. That they
would have relied on this gabardine out of clothing and
then woolen sweaters underneath, whilst we could have multiple layers
(14:03):
use the latest technology for that clothing keep us nice
and warm, particularly the guys working on the back deck
on the subseding. They're out there for six eight hours
at a time, and we had temperatures dropping down to
about minus eighteen degrees centigrade. For the time you've got
wind blowing over the back deck, that wind chill factor
(14:25):
was getting down to minus twenty to minus twenty five
degrees centigrade. So as expension leader, I had to make
sure that no one got hypothermia, frost nit or even
worst case frostbite.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Right, and for those of us that think in fahrenheit terms,
that's even a bigger number, a bigger minus number, right, Yeah, Yeah,
those are tough conditions. And so you had a general
sense of where the ship was I assume, right, and
then used some submersible technology to be able to actually
find it.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
You know, the records at the Scott Polar Research Institute
were a mental We could examine Chapleton's diary, but particularly
worse these diary and his log books. So we had
a and he gave an estimated position of where the
ship sank, and from that we could create a search
box around the wreck, which was developed by the experts
at Deepatient Search led by NICKA. Vincent. We found the
(15:20):
ship literally right at the end of the expedition. We'd
only perhaps got another two maximum three days on site
because we were running out of charter time on the ship.
But also the weather conditions were changing and the sea conditions,
so all around the ship, the temperatures were really falling
very quickly, and we were getting sea ice forming around us.
(15:42):
So I knew that we'd have to call it a
day very very very soon. So I was actually thinking
that we would not find the wreck. So it was
a huge surprise. Yeah, absolute joyous moment when we actually
found the wreck on the fifth of March.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Hey, you didn't want your ship to meet the same
fades the endurance, right.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah, yeah, wellship getting stuck. Ship, ship design and technology
is very different now and absolutely amazed that's is a
very powerful icebreakers still hold, so we wouldn't have been crushed.
But if the ice conditions got really bad, we could
get stuck and you know, and then that would require
(16:25):
another ship to come to our aid.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Right now, the ship itself was was in remarkably good condition,
isn't that correct? I think I saw some picture. Yeah,
was still sitting upright on the on the ocean floor.
It's pretty amazing picture. It is amazing. So yeah, if
you get to look at the book National Geographic have
just published. It was published on the fifth of November.
(16:50):
So he's got some beautiful pictures of the wreck.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And yes, I think, I think, you know, she was
strong and she might be one in one, but other
experts have said now she was crushed to smithereens like
match sticks and there won't be anything left. So it
was wonderful to see her sitting on the sea floor.
You know, it's one of the memories that I'll keep
(17:15):
with me to till I die, when I first see
the amazing video imagery that they called her. The wreck
where you can still see the original paint on the
vessel is still there. You can see a whole range
of artifacts are still there, beautifully preserved, like leather boots,
there's a telescope, there's a flair pistol, the anchors are
still there, and particularly at the stern the aft of
(17:40):
the vessel that really didn't get that crushed in the ice,
so that's beautifully preserved. The ship's wheel is still in place.
They changed to the rudder are still there. You can
even see the glass porthole into Shackleton's cabin. Shackleton just
his main cabin was just off that.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
It's sitting on his desk.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yes, what was he what was he reading before the ship?
Speaker 1 (18:07):
So what was that day like when you when you
found the ship? It must have been pretty euphoric for
you and the and the rest of the crew.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, well I didn't know because I was I was
so worried we'd have to end the expedition. I wanted
a bit of time off the ship to clear my head.
So I went off the ship with marine archaeologist and
director Expression ments and bound and the ship was locked
into big ice floes. The guys were diving with Maon robot,
which a saber tooth. So I took took the opportunity
(18:37):
to take Menton off the ship and in the ice
flow beside us was a big iceberg locked into the
the floe very spectacular. So I took Menton for a
walk around the iceberg. So we went out, walked around.
As we were coming back and really talking through how
we were going to end the search, how we're going
to break the news to the subs team and the crew,
(19:01):
the ship or the sponsors. By this time, we had
this huge social media following me. Several million people were
following us on social media. How are we going to
break the news that we hadn't found anything, and we
were going to be coming back empty handed. So and
as we're coming back to the ship, my mood had
lifted and I said to Menson that today's going to
(19:24):
be a really good day. By this time, they'd found
the ship and they were going absolutely berserved on the
back deck trying to call me, Menson and with no
luck because I was on the safety channel. So we
come back onto the ship and then Nico calls me
on the radio and then and I'm says, can I
come up to the bridge straight away? And then Nico
(19:45):
he often wants to play a bit of a joke,
so he's sitting up on the bridge looking very very
said and not giving anything away at all, and I
thought it really was bad news. So we go up
to and said, you know what going on? What's happened?
And he just shows us his iPhone and says, gentlemen,
(20:06):
let me introduce you to the Endurance. And that was
absolutely incredible. I never thought that we were going to
find the vessel. So if you watch the movie, If
you watch the movie, and National Geographic has got a
movie which is now streaming on Disney Plus Lulu, you
can see my reaction, which is a huge combination of relief, happiness, joy,
(20:30):
incredulity that we've found the ship. It was an amazing,
amazing moment, It really was, because I never thought we
were going to find it.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
That's that's tremendous and so a bit of a celebration.
But you had to leave pretty quickly, right, You couldn't
stay much. Yeah, we couldn't say, you couldn't period. So
the guys have found the ship. They found it using sonan.
Basically they're using sound waves to map the sea floor.
So to get the amazing imagery the podographs that you
(21:00):
see in the book, they needed to change out the
sonar put in very high resolution cameras, so we now
have a three D model. We basically fly around the
wreck and look at it at one millimeter resolution. It
really is quite incredible. And in the book, there's a
gatefold to the book and you can pull it out
(21:21):
and look at the plan view of the wreck and
see some of these things lying on the deck, pots
and pans, boots, the rigging, the ship's wheel. There's even
a life vest that you can see. These amazing artifacts
are still on the deck of the ship. It's incredible
(21:44):
to see it and all in this amazing condition because
the conditions in the world see as such that it's
very cold. Is it's one point eight to be centigrade
at that depth. Of course it's dark. No light can
penetrate that far are. It's way too deep to be
(22:04):
hit by icebergs, by the keels of icebergs. But probably
more importantly, the currents there are very very slow, so
nothing will get washed off. But perhaps the most important
reason is that because it's so cold there and so remote,
that many of the organisms which would consume wood in
(22:25):
more temperate waters just can't exist in the very cold
waters of Antarctica. So for example, if you go if
you dive on the Titanic, now there's no wood on
the Titanic. It's all been consumed by bacteria or wood
boring worms, and you don't find those in Antarctica. So
that's why, that why Ensurance is in such good condition.
(22:47):
People like links and bound on me archaeologist Nico Vincent
or subseam management, they've got decades of experience of working
on wooden REGs and it's by far and away the
most preserved wooden wreck they've ever seen in their lives.
It really is quite incredible. Yeah, that's fair, So perfect
(23:07):
conditions for preservation.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Yeah, so what's very interesting again, good bye the book.
You'll see that there's a picture taken by Frank Hurley
and photographer. He takes the last photo of the joints
on the eighth of November nineteen fifteen. And if you
strip away that ice that's in the photograph and then
compare it to how she looks on the seafloor, it
(23:31):
really is. It's just as if she sank yesterday. She
is in incredible condition. You can relate everything you can
see on the Hurly photograph to how the ship looks
like on the sea floor now one hundred and nine
years later.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, that's fair, that's amazing. That's great. Is the last question?
Whatever happened to Shackleton.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
When they finished the Endurance Expedition. You know, the First
World War was still raging, so all the men enlist
and in fact two of them die within weeks of
coming back. They're torpedoed and die on board ships. And
Hurley becomes a war for top He actually become a
quite a famous wharf for the First World War, and
Shakato goes off to the to fight on the Russian Front,
(24:14):
but he can't really when the war finishes, he can't
really settle at home. He does the lectures and gets
his book out and the Purley's documentary South is broadcast.
He doesn't really settle when he decides that he's going
to have another expedition, so it's called the Quest expedition.
He didn't really have much of an objective. He was
(24:34):
going to sail around Antarctica and survey some of the
remote sub Antarctic islands. And he gets as far as
South Georgia, and he's a very young man. He's still
very young, he's only forty seven, and in the very
early hours of the fifth of January nineteen twenty two,
has a massive heart attack at South Georgia and he dies,
(24:59):
but the Cress Expision still continues under his deputy. Frank
Wild had been his deputy on the Insurance expedition, so
in his memory they continue the expedition, but Wild decides
to return the body to his wife, Lady Emily Shackleton,
back in the UK. He takes one of the metrologys
something Leonard Hussei goes with the body against Montevideer and
(25:22):
Lady Chackleton says, now she wants the body return to
South Georgia, the scene of Shackleton's greatest triumph. So they
bring the body back, and then amazingly that the burial
of Shackleton at South Georgia takes place on the fifth
of March nineteen twenty two, and we found the ship
(25:43):
the ship on the fifth of March twenty twenty two,
exactly one hundred years later.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
We've been talking to doctor John Shear's co author of
the new national geographic book Endurance, The Discovery of Shackleton's
Legendary Ship. It's also a film streaming now. So John,
thank you so much. That was just a fascinating interview
and the story. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Mike. Well, that's all for this week. I'm Mike Christian,
inviting you to join us again next week on What's
at Risk. Also check out our podcast at Wbznewsradio dot
iHeart dot com what's on your mind? Send us your thoughts,
(26:32):
comments and questions to What's at Risk at gmail dot com.
That's one word, What's at Risk at gmail dot com.
Thank you, A big thank you to our producer Ken
Carberry of Chart Productions.
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