Shackleton Expedition Saved All Twenty-Eight

From 1914 to 1917, British explorer Ernest Shackleton led the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in an attempt to make the first land crossing of Antarctica. Weddell Sea pack ice trapped and eventually crushed the Endurance, forcing its 28 men to camp on drifting ice for months before taking lifeboats to Elephant Island. Shackleton and five companions then sailed 800 miles to South Georgia, where Shackleton, New Zealand sea captain Frank Worsley, and Irish sailor Tom Crean crossed 26 miles of unmapped mountains and glaciers to reach help. Shackleton rescued all 28 Endurance crewmen alive. When Shackleton asked if the world war ended, he learned that it still raged: "The war isn't over. Millions are dead. Europe is mad. The world is mad."

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