One afternoon in May 1916, three filthy, exhausted men staggered into a whaling station on the South Atlantic island of South Georgia. They needed help with a rescue mission. Millions were fighting and dying in the First World War, but here, at the ends of the earth, a group of men led by Ernest Shackleton had risked their lives hoping to be the first to cross the icy continent of Antarctica via the South Pole. Their expedition failed, but their story is being reassessed in books and films as an inspiring adventure.

By the late 19th century, Antarctica was the only continent still unexplored. On an earlier expedition in 1909, Shackleton had become a national hero at the age of 35 when he managed to get within 100 miles of the South Pole, breaking previous records. In 1911, Captain Scott’s British expedition was beaten to the Pole by the Norwegian Amundsen. Scott and his men died on the way back.

The Great War began just as Shackleton’s latest expedition set off in August 1914. He had offered ship and crew for war service, but his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was seen as a chance to restore British prestige and the Admiralty declined. In any case, the war was not expected to last long.

Most of the expedition team had been born in the heyday of late Victorian imperialism and grown up with the boys’ adventure stories popular at the time. Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea had inspired Shackleton to leave school at 16 and go to sea. Like Shackleton, most of the men on the expedition were motivated by adventure. Several of them were old Antarctica hands.

There were two expedition ships. One, Aurora, sailed from Tasmania to one side of Antarctica to set up a trail of provision depots, so that the main party crossing the continent would not need to carry food and fuel for the whole 1,500 miles. The second ship, Endurance, set off from Argentina to the point where the land journey would begin. Endurance carried 28 men, including Shackleton. No women were included, although a group of schoolgirls had unsuccessfully applied. It was to be another 20 years before a woman would set foot in Antarctica.

Endurance was captained by New Zealander Frank Worsley. Most of the party were British. As well as the crew, there were doctors and scientists. There was also a photographer and film-maker, Australian Frank Hurley - Shackleton partly funded the expedition by selling the picture rights. Shortly after sailing, a seasick stowaway was found, teenager Percy Blackborow. After a friendly telling-off from Shackleton, who said stowaways were the first to get eaten if food ran out, the boy was sent to help the cook. Endurance carried pigs for food, dogs to pull the sledges, and the ship’s cat, Mrs Chippy.

At first all went well but, as they approached Antarctica, pack ice blocked the way. The boat had been strengthened to push through frozen seas, but by the end of January 1915, it had become trapped in the ice. As the ice drifted with the currents, Endurance was carried away from land. The wireless equipment was too primitive to raise a call for help. They were trapped.

Shackleton’s gift for boosting morale became all-important. An affectionate nickname for him was “the Boss” but his approach was more democratic than usual for the time. Food and shelter were allocated fairly, problems discussed by the whole group, and everyone’s point of view got a hearing. The men exercised on the ice, and trained and raced dog teams. They hunted seals and penguins for food, built ice shelters, and “pigloos” and “dogloos” for their animals. On ship, they entertained themselves with music, lantern lectures, and storytelling.

They hoped by October the ship would be freed and they could sail to safety. But the months dragged on and the ship was carried further and further from land. The ice began to crack, and great floes ground against each other squeezing the ship, which began to leak. At the end of October, Shackleton gave the order to abandon ship. Not long after, Endurance sank.

They were now over 200 miles from land and many miles from open sea. They tried to drag lifeboats across the ice to the distant water. The men had to leave most of their possessions. Toothbrushes and toilet paper became more precious than gold watches. Exceptions were made for a banjo, which Shackleton called “vital mental medicine”, and some of Frank Hurley’s photographic negatives. The dog and cat had to be shot.

The men could only camp on an ice floe and wait. They were trapped for six more months. It was not until April 1916 that the ice broke up enough for them to set off in lifeboats for the nearest land, tiny Elephant Island, a week away. The island was bleak, wind-lashed, and uninhabited. No ships passed by. Many men were ill, some with frostbite. Despair began to set in.

Shackleton decided their only chance was to seek help from South Georgia, 800 miles away. He and five others would go. The boat, only about 22ft long, had to cross rough seas in the winter darkness. It seemed impossible. McNeish, the carpenter, made the boat as strong as he could; Worsley was a skilled navigator; Second Officer Tom Crean and two others were chosen for their strength and experience.

They withstood 17 days of hurricane, frostbite, hunger and thirst before reaching South Georgia, but landed on an uninhabited part of the island. To reach the whaling station, they had to cross the mountainous and unmapped interior. Shackleton, Worsley and Crean set off. The carpenter inserted boat screws into the soles of Shackleton’s worn-out boots so they would grip the ice. After finding a way across the mountains, they reached the top of a steep snow-covered slope, the bottom invisible in the growing darkness. They could not turn back, so they slid down on coils of rope. They landed safely, but still had miles to go. Altogether it took 36 hours before they staggered into the whaling station.

The first task was to arrange for the rescue of the three men left on the other side of South Georgia. Meanwhile, those left far away on Elephant Island were losing hope. It was another three months before Shackleton was able to rescue them. “I have done it,” he wrote. “Not a life lost and we have been through hell.”

This is true, if we just look at the saga of Endurance. But on the other side of Antarctica, Aurora, bearing a group of badly equipped men laying down stores for Shackleton’s party, also got trapped in the ice. Some of the party were stranded on land with insufficient provisions. Three died. They were also part of Shackleton’s enterprise.

When Shackleton reached the whaling station he asked: “When was the war over?” “The war is not over,” he was told. “The world is mad.” In that battle-weary era, the story of Shackleton and his men seemed less significant than it does today. Shackleton was brave, enterprising, and inspired his men in unimaginable conditions. But his expedition failed. After an earlier failure, when he had turned back without reaching the South Pole, he said: “Better a live donkey than a dead lion.” Were they donkeys or lions? Heroes or fools? Or both? That depends on how you tell the story.

Judy Greenway lectures in history and cultural studies at the University of East London

THINGS TO DO

Geography.

* Use maps to find out more about Antarctica. Provide a globe, a physical world map, and maps showing the distribution of population, rainfall and climatic zones. Ask pupils: Where is Antarctica? Where are the nearest centres of population? Why is its climate so extreme? Talk about the information from the different sources.

History.

* Talk about earlier European explorers (such as Columbus or Drake). Investigate other famous journeys and make a time line showing the period when Europeans first reached Africa, the Americas and Australia. Why was Antarctica one of the last areas to be explored? How did explorers’ motives change over time?

English.

* Find out more about conditions in Antarctica from books and electronic sources.

* Have the children write a diary from the point of view of the boy stowaway. Encourage them to add the details gleaned from their research in order to bring the story alive.

* Was Shackleton heroic or tragically misguided? Discuss the story and record the evidence for both viewpoints. Get pupils to take on the roles of people involved in the expedition and question them to find out which attitude they favour.

Science.

Investigate the following:

* Ice is a low friction surface. How can soles and wheels be made to grip? Try ideas on an ice cube.

* How are penguins adapted to living in extreme cold?

* How do they hatch their eggs and rear their young?

* The Shackleton party carried preserved food. How many ways is the children’s food preserved - from sealed crisp packets to freezing?