An Unsung Hero · Tom Crean Antarctic Survivor PDF
Preview An Unsung Hero · Tom Crean Antarctic Survivor
"Suddenly the men came across a very steep blue ice slope and the sled began to accelerate even faster down the slippery hill like a toboggan, with the three terrified men lying facedown and clinging onto the straps that held their precious gear in place. The sled, which had no means of braking, raced to a frightening speed of about sixty miles an hour as it plunged helter-skelter into the unknown. At one point it seemed that it had literally taken off as it shot straight across a yawning crevasse with the men hanging on for dear life. Evans cast a quick glance at Crean who raised his eyebrows as if to say "What next!"
Tom Crean's name is not commonly recognized today, but he was an integral member of three of the most important Antarctic expeditions of the twentieth century, and both a glacier and a mountain in Antarctica bear his name.
Crean ran away from his home in Ireland's County Kerry to join the navy shortly before his sixteenth birthday and, in 1901, he volunteered to join Robert Falcon Scott's first expedition to Antarctica. It was three years before he returned to civilization, but Crean was hooked, and when Scott made his second -- and fatal -- voyage to the continent in order to reach the South Pole, Crean returned with him. And finally, when Ernest Shackleton -- who had also been on Scott's first expedition -- was selecting the men he wanted with him on Endurance, he did not forget his old shipmate, Crean.
Crean was clearly the sort wanted in a dangerous, uncertain venture: a loyal man of selfless courage, whose warmth and humor kept despair at bay in the life-and-death situations that arose in the extreme environment of the Antarctic. Although facing unimaginable peril, he sang throughout the seventeen-day crossing of the Southern Ocean in a twenty-two-foot whaleboat with Shackleton. In what is arguably the greatest feat of individual heroism in the history of polar exploration, Crean trekked across thirty-five miles of snow and ice to reach rescue for his comrade, Teddy Evans, who was incapacitated by scurvy.
Tom Crean's epic story spans the entire Heroic Age of Polar Exploration. He spent more time on the ice than either the more celebrated Scott or Shackleton and outlived them both.
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