Shackleton's Heroes

by Wilson McOrist

  Finally, if a definition of heroism is to risk one’s own life to save the life of another, then it is self-evident that the efforts of the Mount Hope Party were heroic. Their mission was not for glory. All their efforts were geared towards placing provisions they believed were crucial for Shackleton’s survival. In their minds the men coming across from the Weddell Sea side would be dependent on the depots, so they simply had to be laid, at all costs. Undeterred by the loss of the Aurora and most of their dogs they set about that task. Wearing boots made from old sleeping bags, trousers made from a canvas tent and using old equipment, they succeeded. If Shackleton’s party had crossed Antarctica, the depots would have most likely saved their lives.

  It appears undeniable that the Mount Hope Party was as heroic as other British expeditions of the era, possibly even more so. The six men were not only strong willed and gallant but they were never daunted by the work to be done. They were not simply men who performed with an indomitable spirit in the most challenging of times. They were men who risked their own lives so other men would survive.

  Individual heroes

  In his book South, Shackleton singled out only three men, Joyce, Wild, and Richards. They were Shackleton’s heroes: ‘Mackintosh and Hayward owed their lives on that journey to the unremitting care and strenuous endeavours of Joyce, Wild, and Richards, who, also scurvy-stricken but fitter than their comrades, dragged them through the deep snow and blizzards on the sledges.’16

  It is arguable that Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Hayward should be added to Shackleton’s list.

  Mackintosh was the leader of the party, the man who planned the depot-laying programme. Without his leadership in the early stages, the depots may have never been laid. He managed his men to work cohesively over the winter of 1915 to prepare for the final sledging season. He helped with the sledge-hauling all the way to Mount Hope and ensured the last depot position was located correctly as instructed to him by Shackleton. Even though he was starting to falter on the way out to Mount Hope, he refused to give in. After his health failed he made every effort to help the others by hobbling along next to the sledge rather than sitting on it. He accepted being left behind with Spencer-Smith and Wild, and then later on his own. He made no diary reference of any pain or discomfort for having only one eye. Losing his life, in recklessly making a dash to Cape Evans in May 1916, unfortunately cast a long shadow over his achievements.

  Spencer-Smith too was a man of stature and through all the diaries he comes across as a dedicated, hard-working member of the party. In November 1915 he knew he was unwell but he continued to assist in man-hauling supplies onto the Great Ice Barrier until late January 1916. After breaking down he was carried on the sledge for over 300 miles, lying in a wet and frozen sleeping bag, being jolted continuously day after day as the sledge bounced over the rough surface. The others had nothing but admiration for the way he accepted his condition, and how he remained cheerful and pleasant throughout.

  There is also no reason for Hayward not to be recognised in the same light as Joyce, Wild and Richards. He was certainly seen by others as a hero, being awarded the British civilian medal for bravery, the Albert Medal, for his efforts to save the lives of Mackintosh and Spencer-Smith. From diary entries he was obviously an active member of the team that man-hauled provisions out to Mount Hope. He helped lay all the depots, battled with Joyce and Richards to reach the Bluff depot in the long blizzard and then returned to pick up Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild. It was only after this time that he became so stricken with scurvy that he was unable to help the others.

  Joyce was undeniably a true hero. His willingness and dedication to lay the depots out to Mount Hope at all costs is apparent. He accepted every situation as it was and worked tirelessly. He was the front man on a rope leading the party the majority of the time, suffering snow-blindness and frostbite. He was the only man at Mount Hope to help locate the correct depot position and to place the provisions for Shackleton. He made the decision (with Richards and Hayward) to try to make the Bluff depot rather than die in their tent. He helped drag the sick men to safety and worked tirelessly to help others when they did reach Hut Point.

  Wild certainly comes across as a quiet hero. He seemed to accept the situation in which he was placed, whatever that may be. He looked after the ailing and bed-ridden Spencer-Smith for weeks on end. He shared a tent with Mackintosh, whose actions at times he clearly found hard to fathom, but he did not upset the harmony of the team. He was the one to wait with two sick men while Joyce, Richards and Hayward searched for the Bluff depot, and then he helped these three to bring in the sledge when they did return. He was one of three men able to help Hayward and Mackintosh to reach Hut Point. He seemed to be always longing for a smoke and a drink, and made diary entries with humour even at the most critical of times.

  To Shackleton, and from the diaries, Richards was certainly a hero. As a 22-year-old he shouldered a share of the leadership when Mackintosh started to falter, and when critical decisions had to be made. It was he and Joyce who pushed Mackintosh to use the dogs. He and Joyce were the two men to pull the party through at the most life-threatening times. They steered the party in blizzard conditions. Richards made the decision to take bearings on the back cairns to give them a direction to steer by on their return journey. It was he (with Joyce and Hayward) who had the strength of mind to make a move after being tent bound for six days, to find the Bluff depot and return to rescue Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild. He was one of the three men with the will-power to drag Mackintosh and Hayward to the safety of Hut Point.

  All their endeavours were in vain; but without doubt the six men of the Mount Hope Party were heroic.

  In South Shackleton wrote that the Aurora would land six men at McMurdo Sound and ‘lay down depots on the route of the Transcontinental party’. He knew that the men of the Mount Hope Party would be crossing over ‘well-travelled ground’ and he expected them to encounter some ‘difficulties and dangers’ but he could not have anticipated what eventuated.17

  In Shackleton’s words: ‘The result was that in making this journey the greatest qualities of endurance, self-sacrifice, and patience were called for.’18

  Antarctica after 1917

  The trek of the Mount Hope Party was the last great adventure in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

  No one attempted to emulate Shackleton’s planned crossing of the Antarctic continent until forty-two years after the deaths of Spencer-Smith, Mackintosh and Hayward. In 1957, a private expedition, supported by various Commonwealth governments, set off to cross the Antarctic continent overland. This expedition was planned along similar lines to Shackleton’s 1914–17 expedition. The main party, led by British explorer Dr Vivian Fuchs, left Shackleton Base, on the Weddell Sea side, and they had a support party led by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary based in McMurdo Sound. Like Mackintosh’s 1916 men, Hillary’s team were responsible for laying a line of supply depots towards the South Pole, for Fuchs to use on the final leg of his journey.

  Fuchs’s party arrived at McMurdo Sound on 2 March 1958, travelling with and on a number of motorised vehicles. They took ninety-nine days to cross from the Weddell Sea to McMurdo Sound – a distance of 2,160 miles.

  The men of the Mount Hope Party remembered

  A wooden cross on the hill behind the Cape Evans hut was erected to commemorate the loss of Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Hayward, but there are Antarctic landmarks dedicated to five of the six men of the Mount Hope Party:

  Mount Mackintosh is an Antarctic mountain, at 74° 20´S 162° 15´E, and is the northern-most peak in the Prince Albert Mountains range, within the Trans-Antarctic Mountains.

  Mount Joyce is a prominent, dome-shaped mountain, 6,000 feet high, standing on the south side of David Glacier, 8 geographical miles north-west of Mount Howard in the Prince Albert Mountains of Victoria Land.

  Joyce Lake lies along the northern side of Taylor Glacier in Pearse Valley, Victoria Land.

  C
ape Spencer-Smith is a cape on White Island at 78° 00´S 167° 27´E.

  Mount Hayward is a mountain, also on White Island, at 78° 06´S 167° 21´E.

  Richards Inlet (83° 20´S 168° 30´E) is a large ice-filled inlet at the mouth of Lennox-King Glacier, opening to the Ross Ice Shelf just south-east of Lewis Ridge.

  Apart from the Albert Medals, later replaced with George Crosses, awarded to Joyce, Richards, Wild and Hayward, these are the landmarks that recognise the efforts of the Mount Hope Party which laid the depots required by Shackleton.

  Depots that were never needed.

  Notes

  1. Daily Mirror newspaper, UK, 1909

  2. Ibid., 1913

  3. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976

  4. Richards letter to A. J. T. Fraser, 9 July 1961

  5. Richards letter to L. B. Quartermain, 27 January 1962

  6. Joyce, The South Polar Trail

  7. Richards letter to L. B. Quartermain, 20 December 1963

  8. Ibid., 12 November 1960

  9. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976

  10. Richards letter to L. B. Quartermain, 10 August 1966

  11. Joyce diary transcripts for March and April, 1916

  12. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976

  13. Wild diary, 24 May 1915

  14. Ibid., 6 February 1916

  15. Richards, interview with L. Bickel, 1976

  16. Shackleton, South

  17. Ibid.

  18. Ibid.

  POSTSCRIPT BY DR D. L. HARROWFIELD

  TO ENTER AND then experience the solitude and subdued light of Captain R. F. Scott’s 1910–13 expedition hut at Cape Evans is a unique personal experience that few have enjoyed. To have also been a friend of one of the later occupants, Dick Richards GC Polar Medal, last survivor of the subsequent occupants, the Ross Sea Shore Party 1914–17 led by Lieutenant A. L. A. Mackintosh, was a further privilege. Perhaps the culmination of a life-long interest concerned with Antarctica’s brief human history.

  In recent years several books and chapters in books, along with a few papers in journals, have been published on the Ross Sea Party Expedition during World War One. This expedition had the allotted task given by Sir Ernest Shackleton, of placing essential depots of food and fuel for his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914–17.

  The writings by various authors, including myself, conveyed overviews and reassessments of the expedition, including that of the drift of the Aurora in the Ross Sea and Southern Ocean during 1915–16. The Ross Sea Party expedition, however, continues to be largely unknown. Only a few authors have located and used original manuscripts in private ownership or public institutions to assist in conveying this history. More will perhaps surface in years to come.

  The men cast ashore on Ross Island in 1915 made do with either cast-off or improvised clothing, second-hand equipment along with food around six years old, all salvaged from that abandoned by the earlier expeditions to Ross Island, of Scott and Shackleton. They also put up with a diet mostly deficient in essential components for life, including the necessary calorific value required for good health. It was not until the end of the depot-laying and return to the hut erected at Hut Point for Scott’s first expedition 1901–04 that fresh seal meat provided the necessary sustenance to relieve swollen and blackened gums and joints which slowly faded.

  In the end the task by only six men was achieved, although during the eventual struggle to the safety of a fifteen-year-old wooden hut in a hostile environment, sadly cost the lives of three men. The Reverend Arnold Spencer-Smith died a few miles from safety and Mackintosh, leader of the expedition, along with dog handler Victor Hayward, although reaching Hut Point and regaining strength, were then lost in their desperate struggle for the better environment of the hut at Cape Evans.

  The six men had sledged into history over the great expanse of the Ross Ice Shelf, the area of France, for 170 days and had covered 1,330 miles (2,465 km). One must not however forget supporting party members Irvine Gaze, Alexander Stevens, Keith Jack and John Cope, in the early stages.

  During my work, including that for Canterbury Museum, Antarctic Heritage Trust and more recently Heritage Expeditions, I have often stood outside Discovery hut and gazed over the sea ice in the direction of Cape Evans. I have tried to imagine in the late austral summer, the bleak setting as Mackintosh and Hayward slowly faded in the limited light on 7 May 1916.

  One can only imagine the sadness, pain and perhaps anger, felt by Richards, Ernest Joyce and Ernest Wild who, having done their best to save the men, then saw them lost forever. This new account by Wilson McOrist is compiled solely from original manuscript material. It has focused on the epic struggle of a small group of six men, which included Dick Richards, who in the face of adversity and incredible odds, set out to achieve their goal. They were not to know that Shackleton was in serious trouble on the other side of the continent, that he would lose his ship, and fail to achieve his goal of the first crossing of Antarctica, a dream not realised until four decades later.

  Wilson’s book is also of significance as for the first time the sledging accomplishment of the men who ensured the final depot was laid for Shackleton beside Mount Hope is told through their written accounts. One can feel very close to each of them. The words of these young men convey hardship and suffering, along with times of sadness and perhaps contentment, in a way that now brings this aspect of the expedition to life.

  This book is a lasting tribute to the men of the Ross Sea Shore Party, their great courage and also the four dogs; Oscar, Gunner, Con and Towser who completed the almost impossible task, along with those who helped make this possible. Wilson McOrist has done them a service. In 1916 the Aurora, refitted at Port Chalmers, New Zealand, returned to McMurdo Sound and in January 1917 rescued the seven survivors. Many went on to serve in World War One.

  David L. Harrowfield

  Oamaru

  New Zealand

  TIMELINE

  1914

  In England, Shackleton recruits Mackintosh, Joyce, Spencer-Smith, Wild and Hayward

  11 November The Aurora arrives in Sydney

  1 December Mackintosh recruits Richards

  14 December The Aurora leaves Sydney

  24 December The Aurora leaves Hobart

  1915

  1 January The Aurora enters the Ross Sea, Antarctica

  10 January The Aurora arrives at McMurdo Sound

  24 January The first season of sledging commences

  9 February Joyce’s team lay supplies at Minna Bluff depot, near 79°S

  11 February Mackintosh’s team also reach the Bluff depot

  19 February Mackintosh, Joyce and Wild put down the 80°S depot

  21 February–6 March Hayward and Richards, and others, place depots close to Hut Point

  12 March Spencer-Smith and Richards, and others, are back at Cape Evans

  14 March Hayward and others arrive at Discovery hut, Hut Point

  24 March Mackintosh, Joyce and Wild also reach Discovery hut

  6 May The Aurora is swept away from Cape Evans

  2 June The men at Discovery hut make the crossing to Cape Evans

  22 August The sun appears over the horizon

  September All the depot stores are taken from Cape Evans to Discovery hut

  October The depots laid earlier close to Hut Point are replenished

  November The depots continue to be replenished, using two teams, led by Mackintosh and Joyce

  24 December Mackintosh’s team leaves Bluff depot and heads south. Joyce’s team is approaching the Bluff depot

  31 December Both teams are together

  1916

  6 January At 80°S, Gaze, Cope and Jack are sent back, leaving the six men of the Mount Hope Party

  12 January The 81°S depot is laid

  18 January The 82°S depot is laid

  22 January Near 83°S, Spencer-Smith is left behind

  26 January The final depot at Mount Hope is put in p
lace

  29 January Mackintosh, Joyce, Wild, Hayward and Richards return to Spencer-Smith

  2 February The six men reach the 82°S depot and pick up provisions

  7 February They reach 81°S (209 miles to Hut Point)

  11 February They reach 80°S (155 miles to Hut Point)

  17 February A blizzard stops their progress, 10 miles from the Bluff depot (80 miles to Hut Point)

  17–22 February The blizzard continues

  23 February Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild are left behind

  23–26 February Joyce, Richards and Hayward, with the four dogs, trek to the Bluff depot

  29 February Joyce, Richards and Hayward return to Mackintosh, Spencer-Smith and Wild

  1 March The six men are at Bluff depot (70 miles to Hut Point)

  6 March The six men are 40 miles from Hut Point

  8 March Mackintosh is left behind (30 miles to Hut Point)

  9 March Spencer-Smith dies, early that morning (20 miles from Hut Point)