Endurance
Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage
Alfred Lansing
Basic Books, New York, 1959/2015, 357 pages
Book Review published on: September 5, 2024
In Alfred Lansing’s book, Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, “proceed” was the one-word order given by Winston Churchill (then First Lord of the Admiralty/Navy) to Ernest Shackleton, captain of the Endurance in August 1914. England had just declared war on Germany, and the Endurance was anchored in the river Thames awaiting departure for a polar expedition. It was at the end of the age of adventure and discovery, when men and countries were still racing to reach the last remaining uncharted and unexplored corners of the globe for glory and pride of country.
This is a true tale of leadership and survival under the harshest conditions on earth. I highly recommend it to any military member. Shackleton’s leadership and planning ability are relevant to modern military leaders and revolve around direct leadership, motivation, detailed planning, and personal risk in a dynamic, extreme environment.
Endurance is written by Lansing, who conducted extensive interviews of surviving crew members and was granted access to ships log and all personal diaries from 1957 to 1958. The diaries, logs, and interviews are woven together into an incredible tale of adventure and survival. Lansing tells this story as if he had been there on the ice as an observer, seeing all the events as they unfolded. He makes the reader feel as if they were there too. Lansing outlines the relevant facts and dates but focuses on the men and the hardship they faced. Included in the book are charts, maps, and actual expedition photos.
The South Pole had been reached by a Norwegian ground expedition in 1911. Shackleton’s new expedition would be to cross the entire continent on land by way of the South Pole. Shackleton spent four years fundraising, planning, purchasing, testing equipment, and selecting a crew from three thousand applicants. The result was the ship Endurance, and a hardy crew of twenty-eight men, sixty-nine sled dogs, and the best polar equipment available in 1914.
The expedition was well planned, well-funded, and well-led. However, it very quickly turned from an expedition of exploration to raw survival. This is a leadership lesson in how the most well laid plans can go terribly wrong. The entire expedition and fight for survival lasts just over two years, from August 1914 to August 1916. It begins in England with a cross-Atlantic journey to the southern islands of South America. The crew is quickly trapped in the Weddel Sea off the coast of Antarctica, never reaching landfall due to an unseasonably fierce northerly storm. The crew must survive on the shifting and drifting pack ice for sixteen long months. Shackleton and the crew develop daily, weekly, and long-term rescue plans. Each plan is worked every day and updated as the ship’s condition and weather conditions change, and supplies dwindle. The Endurance is eventually crushed by the powerful ice, and Shackleton must keep crew motivated and busy each day. He always watched and waited for the pack ice to break up and allow them a brief window of opportunity to escape the ice and reach open water and a chance of rescue. The opportunity comes and due to Shackleton’s leaders, planning, and crew preparations, they are ready. They leapfrog off the ice mass to islands in tiny lifeboats, culminating in a daring 750-mile open water journey, and navigating through icebergs and arctic storms to South Georgia Island and a rescue. It is a riveting tale of leadership, comradery, and (pardon the pun) human endurance.
Book Review written by: Lt. Col. Peter Campbell, U.S. Army, Retired, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas