Rescue
After Aurora's arrival in New Zealand in April 1916, Stenhouse began the task of raising funds for the ship's repair and refit, prior to its return to Antarctica to rescue the marooned men. This proved difficult: nothing had been heard from Shackleton since Endurance had left South Georgia in December 1914, and it seemed likely that relief expeditions were necessary for both strands of the expedition. However, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was completely out of funds, and there was no obvious alternative source of finance. Given the chaotic financial circumstances in which Aurora had departed from Australia, private subscribers were hard to find. Finally, the governments of Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain agreed jointly to fund the refit of Aurora, but insisted on their joint committee having full control of the relief expedition.
On 31 May, Shackleton arrived in the Falkland Islands with the story of his escape after the loss of Endurance in the Weddell Sea. His first priority was to effect the rescue of the rest of the Weddell Sea party, stranded on Elephant Island, and it was early December before he arrived in New Zealand. He was too late to influence the organisation of the Ross Sea party's relief; the joint committee had appointed John King Davis to lead the expedition and had dismissed Stenhouse and Aurora's other officers. Davis was a veteran of Mawson's recent Australasian expedition, and had turned down Shackleton's offers in 1914 of the command of either Endurance or Aurora. As a gesture, Shackleton was permitted to sail as a supernumerary officer when the ship left on 20 December. On 10 January 1917, when Aurora reached Cape Evans, the survivors were astonished to see Shackleton approaching them; they then learned for the first time the futility of their labours. After a further week spent in a vain search for the bodies of Mackintosh and Hayward, Aurora headed north for New Zealand, carrying the seven survivors of the original shore party.
Read more about this topic: Ross Sea Party
Famous quotes containing the word rescue:
“To rescue from oblivion even a fragment of a language which men have used and which is in danger of being lost—that is to say, one of the elements, whether good or bad, which have shaped and complicated civilization—is to extend the scope of social observation and to serve civilization.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To rescue our children we will have to let them save us from the power we embody: we will have to trust the very difference that they forever personify. And we will have to allow them the choice, without fear of death: that they may come and do likewise or that they may come and that we will follow them, that a little child will lead us back to the child we will always be, vulnerable and wanting and hurting for love and for beauty.”
—June Jordan (b. 1939)