A Most Incredible Rescue

The 100th anniversary of one of the greatest moments of polar adventure and exploration lurks just over the horizon — the rescue of Ernest Shackleton and his expedition team from Elephant Island by a Chilean ship Yelcho and Captain Luis Pardo Villalon (“Piloto Pardo”).

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition set off from England in the summer of 1914 in two ships, with the intention of exploring and learning more about the southern polar region. Shackleton’s flagship, the Endurance, became lodged in an ice floe in early 1915 and the crew eventually had to abandon ship. After camping on the ice floe for months, the crew used the lifeboats to make a harrowing five-day crossing of the Weddell Sea to Elephant Island.

Shackelton and five of his men then made the 720-mile crossing to South Georgia in a 20-foot lifeboat called the James Caird — during a hurricane no less. Reaching a whaling station on the island, Shackelton asked the Chilean government to organize a rescue. Piloto Pardo and his small seagoing tugboat reached Elephant Island on August 30th, 1916, ending an epic ordeal of polar survival that spanned 20 months.

The men were transported to Punta Arenas and then Valparaiso, arriving to a hero’s welcome in both Chilean ports.

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