Shackleton's Endurance Explained: How All 28 Men Survived the Antarctic

In 1915 the Antarctic ice crushed Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, and left 28 men on a frozen sea, hundreds of miles from help. This is how every one of them came home: the drift on the ice, Elephant Island, the 800-mile voyage of the James Caird, the 36-hour crossing of South Georgia, and the fourth rescue attempt that finally got through. Told with Frank Hurley's original photographs and the words of the men who were there. 0:00 Cold Open 0:32 Chapter 1: Proceed 2:17 Chapter 2: Frozen In 3:23 Chapter 3: "She's Going, Boys!" 4:55 Chapter 4: Patience Camp 6:20 Chapter 5: Elephant Island 7:43 Chapter 6: Eight Hundred Miles 9:15 Chapter 7: Across the Mountains 11:06 Chapter 8: "We Are All Well, Boss" 12:47 Closing Sources and credits: Photographs: Frank Hurley and the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917), via Wikimedia Commons, State Library of New South Wales (no known copyright restrictions), Royal Museums Greenwich and Library of Congress (Bain News Service). Public domain. Plates, maps and drawings: Ernest Shackleton, South (London: Heinemann, 1919), scanned copy from Cornell University Library via Internet Archive. Public domain. Drawings are period illustrations, not photographs. Map-plan of the expedition published in the press, March 1916 (Wikimedia Commons). Antarctic map: Royal Geographical Society, 1914. Public domain. Film: departure of the Nimrod, Lyttelton, 1908 (Shackleton's earlier expedition, not the Endurance), Archives New Zealand. South Georgia footage: 1922 film fragment, EYE Filmmuseum. Newspapers and magazines (1916): The Times, The New York Times, Oakland Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chicago Daily Tribune, Le Pays de France. Public domain. Modern images, labelled on screen: Elephant Island (NOAA, 1962), Grytviken whaling station (NOAA, 1995) and Stromness Bay (NASA satellite image). No photographs were taken during the James Caird voyage or the crossing of South Georgia; photos of the crossing route were taken on another occasion. The 'Men wanted for hazardous journey' advertisement has never been found in any newspaper: Smithsonian Magazine, Jan 30, 2025: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-... Ernest Shackleton, South (1919), Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5199 State Library of New South Wales, Shackleton expedition (Hurley diaries and plates): https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/sha... Armada de Chile, the Yelcho and Piloto Luis Pardo: https://www.armada.cl/custom/pilotopa... Endurance22 / Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, 'Endurance is Found' (2022): https://endurance22.org/endurance-is-... Worsley's sun sights ('four times in the first 13 days'): F. A. Worsley, Shackleton's Boat Journey, as quoted by Small Boats Monthly and The Conversation (2022): https://theconversation.com/endurance... Distance Elephant Island - South Georgia: about 800 statute miles (about 700 nautical miles) in a straight line. Would you have taken a seat in the James Caird, or stayed with Wild and waited? #shackleton #endurance #antarctica #survival #history