Ross Sea party

Its task was to lay a series of supply depots across the Great Ice Barrier from the Ross Sea to the Beardmore Glacier, along the polar route established by earlier Antarctic expeditions.

A greater misfortune occurred at the onset of the southern winter when the Aurora, locked in an ice-floe which broke off from the main shelf, was torn from its moorings.

Despite these setbacks, the Ross Sea party survived inter-personnel disputes, extreme weather, illness, and the deaths of three of its members to carry out its mission in full during its second Antarctic season.

This success proved ultimately without purpose, because Shackleton's main expedition was unable to land after Endurance was crushed in the Weddell Sea ice.

[3] His transcontinental team would then march southward to the Pole, before continuing across the polar plateau and descending via the Beardmore Glacier (which Shackleton had discovered in 1909) to the Great Ice Barrier.

In support of the main journey, therefore, a separate Ross Sea party would land in McMurdo Sound and would lay a series of supply depots across the 400 miles (640 km) width of the Barrier, to assist the crossing group home.

[4] He would later provide the leader of his Ross Sea support party with conflicting instructions on the task; stating on one hand it was of "supreme importance" to have the depots laid, but on the other that he would be carrying what he described as "sufficient provisions and equipment" to cross Antarctica to McMurdo Sound.

In a letter of 18 September 1914, Shackleton stated that he did not want his support party to "have the anxiety of feeling" that he was absolutely dependent on the depots—"in case some very serious accident" incapacitated the depot-laying.

[2] To lead the Ross Sea party Shackleton chose Aeneas Mackintosh, having first attempted to persuade the Admiralty to provide him with a naval crew.

[6] Mackintosh, like Shackleton, was a former Merchant Navy officer, who had been on the Nimrod Expedition until his participation was cut short by an accident that resulted in the loss of his right eye.

[7] Another Nimrod veteran, Ernest Joyce, whose Antarctic experiences had begun with Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Expedition, was appointed to take charge of sledging and dogs.

[12] The Reverend Arnold Spencer-Smith, a Scottish Episcopal Church priest and former schoolmaster, joined as a replacement for one of the original members of the expedition who had left for active service in the First World War.

[14] Although the Ross Sea party's main role was to lay supply depots, Shackleton added a small scientific team to carry out biological, meteorological and magnetic research in the region.

[17] To compound the problem, Shackleton had reduced the funds available to Mackintosh from £2,000 to £1,000, expecting him to bridge the difference by soliciting for supplies as free gifts and by mortgaging the ship.

Mackintosh decided to establish a shore base at Cape Evans, Captain Robert Falcon Scott's headquarters during the 1910–1913 Terra Nova Expedition, and to find a safe winter mooring nearby for Aurora.

[23] Believing that Shackleton might attempt a crossing during the first season, Mackintosh decided that the first two depots had to be laid without delay, one at 79°S near Minna Bluff, a prominent Barrier landmark, and another further south at the 80° mark.

[32] By the time that all parties were reunited at Hut Point (Scott's old Discovery base at the edge of the Barrier) on 25 March,[33] the men themselves were exhausted and frostbitten, and there was a significant loss of confidence in Mackintosh.

[37] The priority task for Stenhouse was to find a winter anchorage in accordance with Shackleton's instructions not to attempt to anchor south of the Glacier Tongue, an icy protrusion midway between Cape Evans and Hut Point.

After a final visit to Hut Point on 11 March to pick up four early returners from the depot-laying parties, he brought the ship to Cape Evans and made it fast with anchors and hawsers, thereafter allowing it to become frozen into the shore ice.

Held fast, and with its engines out of commission, the Aurora began a long drift northward away from Cape Evans, out of McMurdo Sound, into the Ross Sea and eventually into the Southern Ocean.

[42] These supplies provided a harvest of material, which enabled clothing, footwear and equipment to be improvised, while the party used seal meat and blubber as extra sources of food and fuel.

[44] The second stage, hauling back and forth between Hut Point and the Bluff, proved more problematic, with unfavourable weather, a difficult Barrier surface, and more dissension between Mackintosh and Joyce over methods.

[48] Shortly after the main march to Mount Hope began, on 1 January 1916, the failure of a Primus stove led to three men (Cope, Jack and Gaze) returning to Cape Evans,[49] where they joined Stevens.

"[56] In spite of their difficulties the party made good progress until, on 17 February about 10 miles (16 km) short of the Bluff depot, they were halted by a blizzard.

[60] The three men still on their feet were by now too weak to haul three invalids, so on 8 March Mackintosh volunteered to stay in the tent while the others attempted to take Spencer-Smith and Hayward to Hut Point.

Richards, Joyce and Wild waited until 15 July to make the trip to Cape Evans, where they were at last reunited with Stevens, Cope, Jack and Gaze.

[62][63] After Aurora's arrival in New Zealand in April 1916, Stenhouse began the task of raising funds for the ship's repair and refit, prior to its return to Antarctica to rescue the marooned men.

[64] His first priority was to effect the rescue of the rest of the Weddell Sea party, stranded on Elephant Island, and it was early December before he arrived in New Zealand.

He was too late to influence the organisation of the Ross Sea party's relief; the joint committee had appointed John King Davis to lead the expedition and had dismissed Stenhouse and Aurora's other officers.

After a further week spent in a vain search for the bodies of Mackintosh and Hayward, Aurora headed north for New Zealand, carrying the seven survivors of the original shore party.