“The end came at last about 5pm. The pressure started again irresistibly. She was doomed: no ship built by human hands could have withstood the strain. I ordered all hands out on the floe.

“It is hard to write what I feel.

“The end of the Endurance has come. But though we have been compelled to abandon the ship, which is crushed beyond all hope of ever being righted, we are alive and well, and we have stores and equipment for the task that lies before us. The task is to reach land with all the members of the Expedition.”

— Ernest Shackleton, South