Crean; The Extraordinary Life of a Irish Hero

Manchester, UK: Keel Foley Publishing, 2018. First Edition. Paperback. New. Egle Gostautaite. Signed by Author, [9x6in]; xix, 229 pp. many illustrations, images and facsimiles, appendix, references, book acknowledgments and index; Blue gray paper wrappers with green, white and black lettering on front and spine, illustration of Crean on foot in blizzard, all edges trimmed. Signed by Author on dedication page. Tom Crean (1877-1938), an Irish seaman and Antarctic explorer for both Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton. He participated in Scott's Discovery Expedition 1901-04 and participated in laying depots on the Ross Ice Shelf. He went with Scott again on the Terra Nova Expedition 1910-13 and participated again in laying depots and accompanying Scott as far as 59 miles from the South Pole, as support of the polar party. The 700 mile return journey was difficult for Lashly, Evans and Crean in losing the trail down the Beardmore Glacier, Evans debilitating scurvy and the blizzards. 35 miles from Hut Point and low on food, Crean went on alone to bring back help. Crean was also part of the party that found the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers the next spring. On returning to Great Britain, he was awarded the Polar medals and the Albert medal for saving Evan's life.

In 1914, Crean joined Shackleton in the Endurance Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17 as Second Officer. The Endurance was beset in the ice in the Weddell sea and was crushed in November 1915. Over the next several months Shackleton and 27 men in three boats travel over the ice and broken sea to the remote Elephant Island. Shackleton chose Worsley, McNeish, McCarthy, Vincent and Crean to participate in an 800 mile boat journey in the 22 foot James Caird to South Georgia Is. for help from the whaling station. The journey was, by an account, one of the most harrowing and difficult open sea voyage in the Antarctic ocean. Ten stormy days later, they arrived at the south part of the Island with the Caird damaged and all the men exhausted from the ordeal. Shackleton choose Worsley and Crean to walk over the unexplored glacier bound mountains to the North side to reach Stromness Bay and the whaling station at Grytviken. They took no sleeping bags and little food to travel light and strait through. They arrived after a dangerous and exhausting march and set off 72 hours later in whaling ships to rescue the remanning 22 men on Elephant Is.