South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-17 (The Century Travellers)

London: Century Publishing / Gentry Book Limited, 1984. Reprint. Trade Paperback. Very Good. 8x5x1. Reprint. Spine creased, ink name on front cover verso, distributor sticker on rear cover. 1984 Trade Paperback. xix, 375 pp. In August 1914 the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914–16) left England under 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 Endurance was trapped in ice off the Caird coast and drifted for 10 months before being crushed in the pack ice. The members of the expedition then drifted on ice floes for another five months and finally escaped in boats to Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands, where they subsisted on seal meat, penguins, and their dogs. Shackleton and five others sailed 800 miles (1,300 km) to South Georgia in a whale boat, a 16-day journey across a stretch of dangerous ocean, before landing on the southern side of South Georgia. Shackleton and his small crew then made the first crossing of the island to seek aid. Four months later, after leading four separate relief expeditions, Shackleton succeeded in rescuing his crew from Elephant Island. Throughout the ordeal, not one of Shackleton's crew of the Endurance died. A supporting party, the Ross Sea party led by A.E. Mackintosh, sailed in the Aurora and laid depots as far as latitude 83°30′ S for the use of the Trans-Antarctic party; three of this party died on the return journey. - Briannica