Shipwrecked and marooned for months, an ill-fated voyage becomes a triumphant story of indomitable courage and faith in the face of astounding obstacles.
Bound for Antarctica, where polar explorer Ernest Shackleton planned to cross on foot the last uncharted continent, The Endurance set sail from England, in August 1914. In January 1915, after battling its way for six weeks through a thousand miles of pack ice and now only a day's sail short of its destination, The Endurance became locked inside an island of ice. For ten months the ice-moored Endurance drifted northwest before it was finally crushed. But for Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men the ordeal had barely begun. It would end only after a near-miraculous journey by Shackleton and a skeleton crew through over 850 miles of the South Atlantic's heaviest seas to the closest outpost of civilization.
Through the diaries of team members and interviews with survivors, Lansing reconstructs the months of terror and hardship the Endurance crew suffered. In October of 1915, there "were no helicopters, no Weasels, no Sno-Cats, no suitable planes. Thus their plight was naked and terrifying in its simplicity. If they were to get out--they had to get themselves out." How Shackleton did indeed get them out without the loss of a single life is at the heart of Lansing's magnificent true-life adventure tale.
Alfred Lansing's brilliantly narrated book has long been acknowledged as the definitive account of the Endurance's fateful trip. This new edition of the all-time bestseller has been augmented with maps and illustrations.
Pages: 282 (paperback)