I am just going outside and may be some time.

Plus the ability to make such matter of fact statements before going out to their death.

We would expect no less from the Upper and Officer class of the nation that invented the “stiff upper lip”. 😀

Plus the ability to make such matter of fact statements before going out to their death.

And let us not forget the tragedy of Sir John Franklin’s arctic 1845 expedition. They showed the same kind of courage while facing immense odds and later, death.

I wonder if it was living on a small, and very civilized island that drove the English to be such great explorers?

I know the Antarctic is a big place (to be over simplistic !) but it would be quite simple I would imagine to calculate and measure the speed of the glacier and how long it would take to reach the open sea (if I am correct in what I say about the burial sites). I do hope though, that they are left alone.

That would be my view too, but I suppose the relatives would have to be involved whenever the day arose.

I agree. Let them be.

Let them rest in peace.

…so nature will take its course slowly and they will find their way to the sea.

Yes, I understood that was the case too.

A question; do we think that their bodies should be returned to the UK before that happens?

Today was the day. Interesting that his body has never been found, maybe like the Vickers 1 and Otzi the iceman, his time will come.

without being at all morbid and meaning no disrespect to any of the five members of the Pole team who all died, Captain Oates was lost on the Beardmore Glacier, and if memory serves, Scott and his team were buried in their tent at the foot of the Glacier as well, so nature will take its course slowly and they will find their way to the sea. P/O Evans was lost further south and I don’t know if he was buried on the platau or the glacier.

It certainly deserves to.

Today was the day. Interesting that his body has never been found, maybe like the Vickers 1 and Otzi the iceman, his time will come.

I remember doing a school project on Oates, Shackelton and Scott when I was still in primary school – even having a trip up to the Discovery at the time.

It’s an amazing piece of self-sacrifice, but ultimately it was for nothing… 🙁

Only a true, old-school British officer and gentleman would do such a thing and leave the tent with words such as these. Respect is due.

It makes you wonder whether people today would have the same idea of self-sacrifice for the good of others.
A couple of years ago in New Zealand I saw a replica of the expedition’s hut.Really brought it home what those men endured,dying one by one in such awful cold,so far from their loved ones.

Agreed, an incredible act of sacrifice and whatever your thoughts on Scott (Fiennes or Huntford camps) a lot of the plans were a mess (mark depots with a single white flag like Scott did, or an “X” of black markers North, South, East, West each giving distance and bearing to the depot as Amundesn did for example).

From what I read, he would have lost his feet had they made it back, and an old gun shot wound in his thigh had re-opened through scurvy. He must have been in agony.