Home / History / Explorers & Discoveries
Shackleton's Endurance expedition
The ship is crushed by ice and the crew survives
Shackleton's ship Endurance was trapped and crushed by Antarctic ice. After months on the ice and an open-boat voyage to South Georgia, he organized the rescue of all 28 men.
Shackleton's goal was the first crossing of Antarctica on foot. The Endurance left South Georgia in December 1914 but was trapped in the Weddell Sea pack ice in January 1915. The ice crushed and sank it in November 1915, and the men camped on drifting floes for months.
In April 1916, the men took lifeboats to Elephant Island. Shackleton and five others then sailed a small boat, the James Caird, about 800 miles to South Georgia, crossed the mountainous island on foot to reach a whaling station, and then made several attempts to reach the men left behind, succeeding in August 1916, and all 22 men on Elephant Island survived.
Although the crossing never happened, the expedition became a famous survival story. A separate Ross Sea party, supporting the expedition from the other side, lost three men. The wreck of the Endurance was located in March 2022 in the Weddell Sea at a depth of about 3,000 meters and was in remarkably good condition.
Shackleton's leadership in keeping the men fed, organized and hopeful is still widely studied. Frank Worsley navigated the small boat across the stormy Southern Ocean, and Frank Hurley's photographs preserved a vivid visual record.