March 17: On This Day in World History … briefly
1912: Explorer sacrifices his life for fellow climbers
Captain Lawrence Edward Grace ‘Titus’ Oates was a British army officer and later an Antarctic explorer who died during the Terra Nova Expedition when he walked from his tent into a blizzard. His death is seen as an act of self-sacrifice when, aware that the gangrene and frostbite from which he was suffering was compromising his three companions’ chances of survival, he chose certain death. Scott, Oates and 14 other members of the expedition set off from their Cape Evans base camp for the South Pole on November 1, 1911. At various pre-determined latitude points during the 895-mile (1 440 km) journey, the support members of the expedition were sent back by Scott in teams. On January 4, 1912, at latitude 87° 32′ S, only the five-man polar party consisting of Scott, Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers, Edgar Evans and Oates remained to march the last 167 miles (269 km) to the Pole.
On January 18, 79 days after the start of their journey, they finally reached the Pole—only to discover a tent that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his four-man team had left behind at their Polheim camp, after beating them in the race to the Pole. Inside the tent was a note from Amundsen informing them that his party had reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911, beating Scott’s party by 35 days. Scott’s party faced extremely difficult conditions on the return journey, mainly due to the exceptionally adverse weather, poor food supply, injuries sustained from falls, and the effects of scurvy and frostbite. On February 17, 1912, near the foot of the Beardmore Glacier, Edgar Evans died, perhaps from a blow to the head suffered in a fall days earlier. Oates’s feet had become severely frostbitten and it has been suggested—but never evidenced—that scurvy had reopened his war wound.
He was certainly weakening faster than the others. Scott wrote in his diary on March 5: “Oates’s feet are in a wretched condition … The poor soldier is very nearly done.” Oates’s slower progress was causing the party to fall behind schedule. With an average of 65 miles (105km) between the pre-laid food depots – which each provided a week’s food and fuel – they needed to cover nine miles (14km) per day to have full rations for the final 400 miles (640km) across the Ross Ice Shelf. However, nine miles was about their best progress on any day and this had lately reduced to sometimes only three miles (4.8km) due to Oates’s worsening condition. On March 15, Oates told his companions that he could not go on and proposed that they leave him in his sleeping-bag, which they refused to do. He managed a few more miles that day but his condition worsened that night.
According to Scott’s diary entry of 16 or 17 March (Scott was unsure of the date but thought the 16th correct) Oates had walked out of the tent the previous day into a −40°F (−40°C) blizzard to his death. Scott wrote in his diary: “We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman.” According to Scott’s diary, as Oates left the tent he said, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” Edward Wilson, who was also present, made no reference to this in his own diary or the letters to Oates’s mother.
Scott, Wilson and Bowers continued onwards for a further 20 miles (32 km) towards the One Ton food depot that could save them but were halted at latitude 79° 40′ S by a fierce blizzard on March 20. Trapped in their tent and too weak and cold to continue, they died nine days later, 11m (18km) short of their objective. Their frozen bodies were discovered by a search party on November 12; Oates’s body was never found.
Near where he was presumed to have died, the search party erected a cairn and cross bearing the inscription: “Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman, Captain L E G Oates, of the Inniskilling Dragoons. In March 1912, returning from the Pole, he walked willingly to his death in a blizzard, to try and save his comrades, beset by hardships.”
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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