20th Century | History Hit

The First Ever Documentary Feature was an Antarctic Survival Story

Kyle Hoekstra — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 09:26:07 +0000

Ernest Shackleton’s incredible story of survival, the 1914-16 Endurance expedition, is remembered partly because of its extraordinary heroics, but also because it was filmed and photographed by a cutting-edge cinematographer, the Australian Frank Hurley. Filming in extremes of cold, stranded in the Antarctic, Hurley created what is considered the world’s first documentary feature.

It was first shown to audiences in 1921 as South, a timeless film whose dramatic images captured the travails of the expedition and fixed it in our memories.

In the History Hit film Saving South, made in association with the BFI, Dan Snow visits the British Film Institute’s special sub-zero nitrate film storage facility where blast-proof vaults protect the last fragments of Frank Hurley’s remarkable original footage.

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“South is a hugely important film,” explains the BFI’s silent film expert, Bryony Dixon. “It’s the first documentary feature ever made. This all-encompassing narrative, including all this incredible footage [of] the crew, the wildlife, scenes that had never been seen before, both in terms of this famous story but just what Antarctica was like. It’s an incredible achievement. To have gotten any pictures at all and brought them back was amazing.”

Hurley might never have brought his footage back. Not only did Hurley film and develop the footage while the ship Endurance was beset by ice, he rescued it from the ship as it sank and later buried his precious footage in the icy soil of Elephant Island as the crew awaited rescue. He did not know it but the cold of the permafrost was ideal for preserving celluloid film. It is now stored at -4.1 degrees Celsius.

Hurley, an Australian known for his extreme camerawork (he is pictured setting up in the rigging), was recruited especially for the expedition. The last footage he captured was the moment the mast of Endurance collapsed. Later he wrote that “I had my camera trained on the ship the whole time. I secured the unique film of the masts collapsing.” He had to throw his cine camera away before trekking and rowing to Elephant Island.

Hurley’s footage was assembled and released after the First World War. The viewing copies of South became scratched and damaged by projectors, yet South is among the classic films the BFI has worked hard to restore.

Angelo Lucatello of the BFI National Archives Conservation Centre explains that the 1996 restoration of South took five years to make. “We looked at about 90 copies and we cut the material together out of 13 different sources. So it’s a little bit like a jigsaw.”

Conservators will prefer original footage that is damaged, but crisp, over copies. “There’s always a problem that you will lose quality,” says Lucatello. “There’s a chance of dirt being printed in.” Examining the negatives yields other insights including Hurley’s use of in-camera effects, such as under-cranking the film when the ship broke up to exaggerate movement and underscore its drama.

Thanks to the work on the original negatives, we can watch the entirety of South as shot by Hurley, cleaned up and digitally remastered: an exceptional dispatch from an audacious Antarctic expedition undertaken a century ago.

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The Adventures of Mrs. Chippy, Shackleton’s Seafaring Cat

Lucy Davidson — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 23:30:06 +0000

Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition aimed to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent from one side to another. However, when the ship Endurance sunk in 1915, the crew had to fight to survive. Miraculously, all 28 of the expedition team survived the perilous cold, epic distances and scarce supplies that characterised their voyage over hundreds of miles in search of safety and rescue. The crew then became famous across the world.

However, there was another crew member aboard the Endurance: Mrs. Chippy, a beloved tabby cat known for its devotion to its master, ability to climb rigging and close shaves with death.

Here’s the story of Mrs. Chippy, the Endurance‘s feline crew member.

Mrs. Chippy was a Scottish cat

Mrs. Chippy, a tiger-striped tabby, was bought by Scottish shipwright and carpenter Harry ‘Chippy’ McNish (chippy being a colloquial British term for a carpenter) from his home in Cathcart, Scotland, where he lived in a cottage called Mole Catcher’s House. Mrs. Chippy earned its name by dutifully following Chippy McNish around, like an overly attentive wife.

The name stuck. When Chippy McNish was chosen to be part of the crew on Shackleton’s Endurance, Mrs. Chippy came along too. A ship’s cat, Mrs. Chippy was tasked with both catching mice and rats and being a source of company for the whole crew. After a month at sea, it was learned that the robust tabby cat was in fact ‘not a lady, but a gentleman’.

He was an able seaman

The crew having their hair cut onboard Endurance in 1914. Mrs. Chippy would have been present at many of these events.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The expedition photographer Frank Hurley captured the only known picture of Mrs. Chippy. However, many of the crew wrote about him being ‘full of character’ in their diaries and logs and attested to his confidence and ease at sea.

Captain Frank Worsley detailed Mrs. Chippy’s habit of climbing the rigging “exactly after the manner of a seaman going aloft”, while meteorologist Leonard Hussey noted that he used to take a provocative stroll across the roofs of the dogs’ kennels. He also impressed the crew with his ability to walk along inch-wide rails in the roughest of seas.

However, Mrs. Chippy’s sea legs occasionally wobbled. In an entry dated 13 September 1914, Storekeeper Thomas Orde-Lees wrote that “an extraordinary thing happened during the night. The tabby cat jumped overboard through one of the cabin portholes and the officer on watch, Lt. Hudson, heard her screams and turned the ship smartly round & picked her up. She must have been in the water 10 minutes or more”.

He was picked up by the ship’s biologist Robert Clark, who used one of his sample nets. It seems that one of Mrs. Chippy’s nine lives was used up.

He was shot

After the Endurance became trapped in pack ice, the transcontinental plan was abandoned. Shackleton’s focus was now one of survival, and he began drawing up plans to march the crew westward to one of several possible destinations.

Shackleton’s expedition to the Antarctic faithful dogs being fed in the ice kennel, while Endurance was stuck fast. 1916.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Shackleton ordered that the weakest animals who could not support the perilous journey would need to be shot. Along with five sled dogs (including three puppies, one of whom was the surgeon’s pet), Mrs. Chippy was ordered to be killed.

The ship’s crew reportedly doted over Mrs. Chippy in his final hours, giving him hugs and feeding him his favourite food, sardines, which was perhaps laced with a sleeping drug.

In a diary entry from 29 October 1915, Shackleton recorded:

“This afternoon Sallie’s three youngest pups, Sue’s Sirius, and Mrs. Chippy, the carpenter’s cat, have to be shot. We could not undertake the maintenance of weaklings under the new conditions. Macklin [who owned a pet puppy], Crean [in charge of the dog-handling], and the carpenter seemed to feel the loss of their friends rather badly.”

McNish never forgave Shackleton

McNish proved to be an essential crew member when he was chosen, along with 5 others, to sail some 800 miles in a single lifeboat to South Georgia. He refitted the boat to make the journey possible, and arguably saved the lives of the whole crew as a result.

South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands stamp featuring Mrs. Chippy.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

McNish never forgave Shackleton for killing his cat. Their relationship worsened, and Shackleton even threatened to shoot him for arguing that the crew no longer had to take the captain’s orders since their contract had lapsed upon the sinking of the Endurance in November 1915.

Shackleton and McNish’s relationship was so bad that Shackleton refused to recommend McNish for a Polar Medal that the rest of the crew later received. McNish’s family would (in vain) later try and lobby the British government that McNish be posthumously awarded the same medal in 1997.

Before he died in 1930, McNish repeatedly stated to his friends, family and visitors, “Shackleton killed my cat”.

A statue of him is on his master’s gravestone

Mrs. Chippy’s statue by Chris Elliot. On Harry McNeish’s grave in Karori cemetery, Wellington, New Zealand.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

McNish died in destitution in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1930. Though he was buried with full military honours in a Karori cemetery, he was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave.

In 1959, the New Zealand Antarctic Society were shocked to learn that McNish had received only a pauper’s burial, so raised funds for a headstone to stand on his grave.

In 2004, the same society decided to create a marker for Mrs. Chippy. The public donated funds to create a life-size bronze statue of Mrs. Chippy, and later the same year, around 100 people gathered round McNish’s grave and read words of tribute for both the carpenter and his cat.

There are no words on the grave about beloved Mrs. Chippy. However, it is telling that those visiting the grave often present his little statue with flowers.

Read more about the discovery of Endurance. Explore the history of Shackleton and the Age of Exploration. Visit the official Endurance22 website.

New 3D Images Reveal the Antarctic Wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s Ship

Kyle Hoekstra — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 11:28:00 +0000

Almost a century since Sir Ernest Shackleton’s abandoned exploration ship Endurance sank beneath the ice floes of the Antarctic’s Weddell Sea, new 3D images compiled from 25,000 photographs show just how much of the ship survives.

The images show Endurance’s hull intact as the vessel rests on its keel on the seabed at a depth of 3,008 metres. They reveal that the ship’s steam engine funnel, masts, anchors and guard rails remain attached, despite the damage inflicted by crushing ice after the ship became immobilised in 1915. Additionally clothing and crockery can be seen on the deck.

Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition was halted in its tracks when their ship became beset in pack ice in January 1915. Having drifted in the ice, Shackleton ordered the evacuation of the badly damaged ship on 27 October. A month later, he watched the ship sink and its captain Frank Worsley estimated its sinking position.

Endurance’s portside bow

Image Credit: Endurance: The Discovery of Shackleton's Legendary Ship (National Geographic Society)

In March 2022, the ship was discovered by the Endurance22 team on board the S.A. Agulhas II, mere miles from the position given by Worsley. The subsea team led by Nico Vincent used the Saab Sabertooth AUV to capture thousands of images in 4K resolution, which were combined to create a digital 3D photo mosaic.

“It is our hope,” writes Nico Vincent in the book Endurance: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Legendary Ship, “the 3D digital model becomes the lasting testimony of our expedition and awakens a wide audience and new generations to Shackleton and the Endurance story.”

The view of Endurance’s portside bow shows the ship’s broken foremast and both anchors on the forecastle deck, which was dislodged from the hull. It also shows the two intact glass portholes of the galley forward bulkhead.

The flare gun (bottom-left) fired by Hurley; the boot that my be Frank Wild’s

Image Credit: Endurance: The Discovery of Shackleton's Legendary Ship (National Geographic Society)

The imagery also shows items on the deck of the vessel. A flare gun, the same gun Frank Hurley recorded firing as the Endurance sank, is among the debris. A seaman’s leather boot is also pictured beside rigging and wooden pulleys. It is speculated to belong to Shackleton’s second-in-command Frank Wild, who is photographed in a similar boot.

Endurance: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Legendary Ship

Image Credit: National Geographic Society

The images, which depict a ship in a remarkable state of preservation, are highlighted in a National Geographic documentary which features Dan Snow and is co-produced by History Hit. They feature in the accompanying book Endurance: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Legendary Ship by John Shears and Nico Vincent. It documents that months of analysis of the digital photographs and 3D laser data led to the identification of additional artefacts, including a telescope and a sewing machine.

Chuuk Lagoon

Peta Stamper — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 10:47:01 +0000

On the 17-18 February 1944, America carried out Operation Hailstone, destroying Japan’s Chuuk Lagoon base in the South Pacific. Japan lost over 250 airplanes and 137 tonnes of ships, the remains of which still lie at the bottom of the lagoon: the world’s biggest ship and aircraft graveyard.

The event is often referred to as the Japanese equivalent of Pearl Harbour. Today, Chuuk Lagoon is among the top wreck diving spots of the world.

Chuuk Lagoon history

Previously Truk Atoll, the site of Chuuk Lagoon is located 1,800 km north of New Guinea and consists of a protective reef enclosing a natural harbour. The surrounding Chuuk islands had been settled since the 14th century AD but were claimed by the Spanish Empire, German Empire and eventually the Empire of Japan in 1914, who seized the lagoon from Germany during World War One.

During World War Two, Chuuk Lagoon was the Empire of Japan’s main and most formidable naval base in the South Pacific. The base was heavily fortified against the Allies who were operating in New Guinea and the nearby Soloman Islands. A large part of the Japanese fleet was based at Chuuk, including Imperial battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, minesweepers and submarines.

In 1944, the Japanese Imperial naval base at Chuuk was destroyed by a US naval attack. Having been warned, the Japanese removed their larger warships. However, Operation Hailstone as the attack was known, continued for 3 days as US planes sank 12 smaller warships and 32 merchant ships, as well as 275 aircraft.

The destruction of Chuuk Lagoon’s base prevented it from being a major threat to the Allies in the Central Pacific, especially after it was attacked again by British naval forces in June 1945.

In 1969, a French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau explored the lagoon and following his documentary about the haunting remains of the naval base, the lagoon became a popular site for scuba-diving enthusiasts.

Chuuk Lagoon today

Today, you can visit the Chuuk Lagoon and dive throughout the incredible preserved remains of the Japanese Imperial naval fleet. Divers can spend hours exploring the site’s wrecks, returning multiple times without seeing the same wreckage twice, testifying to the great destruction of Operation Hailstone.

With a local diving guide, you can even explore the engine rooms and cargo holds of some of the destroyed ships. The lagoon is also home to a large variety of beautiful soft and hard corals, all of brilliant colours and providing shelter to rich marine life.

Getting to Chuuk Lagoon

Situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Chuuk Lagoon is hard to access. You can get a direct flight from Guam which takes 1 hour and 46 minutes, or fly from Papua New Guinea which is a 3 hour flight to Chuuk International Airport in Weno. From Weno you get a diving boat to the lagoon.

Frank Hurley’s Photographs of Shackleton’s Disastrous Endurance Expedition

Charlotte Ward — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 10:42:05 +0000

Explorer Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition – better known as the Endurance Expedition – launched in the summer of 1914. On 18 January 1915, Endurance became trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea. The crew worked and lived on the ice surrounding the ship, trying to carefully navigate Endurance through the ice before it eventually sank, forcing the crew to flee across the ice to safety. Endurance wouldn’t be seen again for 107 years, until she was discovered in the waters of Antarctica during the Endurance22 expedition.

Among the crew of the Endurance was the Australian photographer Frank Hurley, who documented many aspects of the ill-fated voyage on film and in still photographs. As the negatives were heavy and the crew were marooned waiting for rescue, Hurley had to destroy or discard many of the images he captured. Some of Hurley’s negatives survived the treacherous journey home, however.

Here are 15 of Hurley’s iconic images of the Endurance Expedition.

Frank Hurley and the Endurance