'Fortitudine Vincimus': An Extraordinary Story of Antarctic Survival

‘Men wanted for hazardous journey:
Small wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness,
Constant danger, safe return doubtful.
Honour and recognition in event of success.’

- Hiring advertisement of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917)

​At a talk in Hong Kong, I came across the surviving images of Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917). When the crew of HMS Endurance had to abandon ship, each men were allowed to take only two pounds of personal belongings. Any extra weight, the leader of the expedition Ernest Shackleton reckoned, would only diminish their chances of survival. The rest of more than four hundred photo plates were deliberately destroyed by Shackleton to prevent anyone from being tempted to take them along. They were about to embark on an impossible march to safety.

Alexandra Shackleton, the granddaughter of the great explorer Ernest Shackleton at the RGS Lecture in Hong Kong.

Images from the Imperial Trans-Antartic Expedition (1914-1917) on display at a lecture by the RGS of Hong Kong.

This expedition was to be the last of its kind in the ‘Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration’ - a time before machines would start to play an important role in expeditions. With the HMS Endurance stuck and later altogether crushed by pack ice, Shackleton had no doubt his expedition was going to fail. Yet just as the ship's name suggest - 'Fortitudine Vincimus' (Latin meaning 'By Endurance We Conquer', taken from Shackleton's own family motto) - Shackleton would pluck triumph from this disaster and turn it into one of the most extraordinary story of determination and survival.

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