No man left behind in the story of James Caird
On April 24, 1916, Kildare-born world famous explorer, Ernest Shackleton put to sea in a 23.5ft open lifeboat on the original mission impossible. His objective, in a freezing South Atlantic Ocean that sometimes saw 320kph winds, was the rescue of 22 of his men stranded on Elephant Island off the Antarctic continent. He and they had been marooned since their specially-constructed ship Endurance had become trapped in pack ice and crushed.
The year previous, Endurance, captained by Shackleton, had sailed from England in an attempt to traverse the Antarctic continent from Ross Sea to the Weddell Sea via the pole. That expedition had become spectacularly unstuck.
