Discovery and Death in Antarctica

by 1910 an international race was under
foot to become the first exploration
team to reach the South Pole British
naval officer robert scott assembled a
team which included author Adrian
recites grandfather and set off hi I’m
Rebecca Braden and welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re speaking
with Ray side about this ill-fated trip
and his own return to Antarctica if you
could start by giving us a brief
synopsis of your book return to
Antarctica I wrote it really as a reason
to give voice to the people who are with
Scott on the 1910s called expedition to
the Antarctic my grandfather’s the
Charles Wright was hired by Scott as
both the physicists and glaciologist on
the expedition I started to piece
together bits of the expedition which
wasn’t the cakewalk that people might
have thought that was and there were
personality conflicts down there Scott
was a totally different man than then
who I thought he was why was this sells
Paul so fascinating for people at this
time it was assumed the South Pole
contained large coal reserves and at
that time all the ceiling ships that
were going down there they needed cold
weather power the engines ought to run
the rendering plants to make the oil be
able to refuel the coal in the Antarctic
would be a totally different can for the
sealers and would also obviously make
them way more money than I making anyway
so that was the economic reason but
Scott his reason was he had to be the
first to be the South Pole that was the
only way he’s going to revive his career
what more can you tell me about the team
about Robert Scott and your grandfather
and other members Scott was a complex
person in that he he got to where he was
in the in the hierarchy of polar
explorers because of knowing the right
people or the right people hooked up
with him these people were quite happy
to overlook the fact that he was
mercurial and probably not the best
leader of men although my grandfather he
saw a flaw in the way that the
provisions are going to be laid out that
you couldn’t tell that to Scott directly
as it was you’d be basically questioning
his order so you’d have to ask Edward
Wilson who was his scars Papa down to
pass the message on to Scott so here you
have somebody who’s a leader of men but
will not actually
speak to them why did the mission fill
there was no leeway for error if they
get stuck halfway out and there’s a
blizzard you’ve got minus 50-60 you’ve
got winds blowing how two miles an hour
you can’t move that blizzard can last
for a day and last for an hour can last
for two days it can ask for six days
this is what happened they got caught
out they didn’t have enough rations to
take and fuel oil to take them that last
step and they ended up dying 11 miles
from one tongue deeper which was the
large food cache and what about your own
trip to Antarctica here we are here’s
the ice-barrier 500 foot cliffs 400
miles wide 500 miles deep flat as a
pancake and the wind comes off the
barrier and it’s like being hit by a
fire hose of cold and that’s the point
where I realized that what they have
must have gone through you you realize
it in the Antarctic getting from A to B
is usually you means you have to get
from A to C decay to Zed back to hell
and then over and then around and then
you’re there so to go on a straight line
you can only do that on the ocean you
cannot do that going over land because
it’s a treacherous so that that really
those are the two things that most took
out of my mind how what they had to
endure just to survive thank you very
much for factoring wonderful thanks
again I really appreciate