He Remains Buried In Ice Along With His Crew After He Lost The Race To The South Pole
On January 18, 1912, Captain Robert Falcon Scott and four of his men reached the geographic South Pole, only to discover they were not the first people to make it there.
When they arrived, they were greeted with a tent and a Norwegian flag. They had lost the race to the South Pole to Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team. Amundsen made it to the southernmost point on the planet about a month before Scott and his crew.
Still, at least he was the first British explorer to reach the South Pole. But since the mission to claim the South Pole was a failure, Scott and his men now had to focus on a more pressing issue.
They needed to make it back to Cape Evans on the coast before the Antarctic winter when temperatures would drop to fatally freezing. Sadly, they died on their return journey.
Robert Falcon Scott was an officer in the Royal Navy. He began his naval career at just 13-years-old when he joined his first ship.
He worked his way up and eventually became a lieutenant in 1889. Then, in 1894, he found himself responsible for his widowed mother and unmarried sisters.
He needed to find a way to financially support his family, so he joined an Antarctic expedition in 1899. He was appointed as the commander and led a team through Antarctica in an attempt to find the South Pole.
The difficult terrain forced them to turn around and head home in 1904. Scott was warmly welcomed back to England even though he had not made it to the South Pole. But the mission set the stage for further exploration.
In 1910, he sailed on the Terra Nova, determined to reach the South Pole this time. He achieved his goal in 1912, but Roald Amundsen beat him to it.
Goinyk – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only – pictured above is a view from Antarctica, the continent where the South Pole is located
Scott and his party had to trek 800 miles back to their base camp, an excruciating and torturous journey that resulted in all of their deaths.
The first to perish was Edgar Evans. He collapsed after sustaining multiple injuries that left him in a vulnerable state.
Next was Lawrence Oates, who was consumed by infection and cold. He sacrificed himself for the sake of his team, walking out of their tent into the middle of a blizzard. His last words were: “I am just going outside and may be some time.”
The remaining three—Scott, Henry Robertson Bowers, and Edward Wilson—continued for another 20 miles.
Soon, a bad storm confined them to their tent for four days, preventing them from making any more progress on their journey.
They died 11 miles away from the next supply depot and over 150 miles from their final destination. The captain’s last journal entry was dated March 29, 1912. A search party came across their frozen bodies on November 12, 1912.
“The frost had made the skin yellow and transparent, and I’ve never seen anything worse in my life,” Tryggve Gran, a young Norwegian explorer who was part of the 11-man search party, said.
“[Scott] seems to have struggled hard in the moment of death, while the two others seem to have gone off in a kind of sleep.”
The rescue crew buried Scott, Bowers, and Wilson in the area where they had died. News of the tragedy didn’t reach Britain until February 1913. King George V led a huge memorial service in St. Paul’s Cathedral soon afterward.
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