ANTARCTIC TRAGEDY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5408, 8 April 1929, Page 1

ANTARCTIC TRAGEDY.

DEATH OF SCOTT AND HIS MEN.

A SEVENTEEN-YEAR-JOLD MEMORY

Seventeen years ago three Englishmen, huddled together in a frail tent, lashed by the fury of an Antarctic

blizzard on the, great Ice Barrier, lay-

awaiting, death from hunger, cold, and

exposure within eleven miles of

plenty and little more than 100 miles

from their base. It was a tragic end

to a great adventure- (says the Dominion). Robert Falcon Scott, Edward Adrian. Wilson, and Henry Il-

Bowers were the surviving members of the, party of five who had actual-

ly made the longest sledge journey on ’record, and had been the first Englishmen at the South Pole. For

nearly five months, they had beep toiling on foot across thy barrier, over the treacherous crevasses aiid chasms in the snowdrifts and ice-fields of

the mighty Beardmore Glacier, and on the ghastly stretches of the Polar

plateau. Now they were, in Scott’s

own words, “ pegging out in. a. very comfortless spot.” It was but a f e - w days before the. end came that the leader wrote his great. Message to the Public.

With its supports the Polar party, led by' Captain Scott, started tin the southern journey on November 1, 1911, The loss of pony transport in the previous autumn forced them to start later than, had been intended, and narrowed the limits of stores carried. Behind all lay the knowledge that their rival, Amundsen and his men Lorn and bred to ice work and with many dogs, planned to start early on a dash to the Pole;. From the very first there was a foreboding that they might be forestalled, and this feeling grew with evejry delay and mishap during the terrible journey across thq Ice Barrier. At- a time of the year when fine weather was to be expected, blizzard succeeded blizzard, and the party were toiling painfully up the Beardmore Glacier, morq than a. month’s painful marching away from the goal, when Amundsen and his four compaafpras planted the Norwegian flag at the South Pole. The latter hud started on October 20, and by not sparing their dogs made the journey in coni; partively fine v,eat her in 55 days. I They rqac.hed the Pole on December 14, 1911, and travelling light and fast in qven he t.ter, weather, were back at the Bay of Whales on January 25.

Scott and his ine.a cleared the Beardmjre Glacier on December 22, wh'Qn four membeis of the supporting party left on their return to the base The remaining eight, manhauling their sledges oyer bad surfaces in indifferent weather across the Polar plateau, arrived within 150 miles of the Pole; on January 3- At this point Edward Evans (now RearAdmiral commanding the Australian Navy) with Lashly and Crean, thq final supports, turned back, thq former being nearly dead from scurvy b.efore the base was reached. On January 16 ScOtt and his fm:r corftpanians, Wilson, Bowers, Oates, and Evans, reached the South Pole only to find that they had been fore? stalled by the Norwegians. “ Great God wrote Scott, “ this is *n awful place and terrible enough to hav.d laboured to it without the reward of priority.” And two days later, as the disheartened party started north : “Well, we have turned our back now on the goal of. our ambition, and must facq out 800 miles of solid (Wagging---and good-bye to most of • the, day dreams Dreadful as had beep the Southward march, the return journey was, worse. It b,ecame a nightmare. Low-spirited and slogging every foot of the way, the little party left the Plateau- after seven weeks in low temperature with almost incessant wind. On February 17 r. O- Evans collapsed and died at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. Matteis rapid}?' went from bad to worse. Thq temperature was almost constantly fib to 70 degrees below freezing ppint. By Marc,h 2 Oates had badly frost-bitten feet, and the end came a fortnight later. “It was blowing a bliMardHe saiid, *’ I am just going outbid,e and may bqsome time.” H'q went but into the blizzard anil we have not seen him since.”

The rest of the tragic story is tdld by entries in Scott’s diary, the last one being : “For God’s sake look after our people.”

■Wilson and Bowers wqre found" in thq attitude of sleep, their sleeping bags closed over the'ir headq as they wbuld naturally close, them. Scott died later. He had thrown back the flaps of his sleeping bag and «Sp’e l ned his coat. The little wallet containing t,h.G three notebooks was linger his shoulders and his arm flung across Wilson. So th'Csy were found '.ig'ht months later.