Ernest Joyce
Encyclopedia
Albert Medal (lifesaving)
The Albert Medal for Lifesaving was a British medal awarded to recognise the saving of life. It has since been replaced by the George Cross.The Albert Medal was first instituted by a Royal Warrant on 7 March 1866 and discontinued in 1971 with the last two awards promulgated in the London Gazette of...
(ca. 1875 – 2 May 1940) was a Royal Naval seaman and explorer who participated in four Antarctic
Antarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
expeditions during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration
Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration
The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration defines an era which extended from the end of the 19th century to the early 1920s. During this 25-year period the Antarctic continent became the focus of an international effort which resulted in intensive scientific and geographical exploration, sixteen...
, early in the early 20th century. He served under both Robert Falcon Scott
Robert Falcon Scott
Captain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO was a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13...
and Ernest Shackleton
Ernest Shackleton
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...
. As a member of the Ross Sea party
Ross Sea Party
The Ross Sea party was a component of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914–17. 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...
in Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition
Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition , also known as the Endurance Expedition, is considered the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent...
, Joyce earned an Albert Medal
Albert Medal (lifesaving)
The Albert Medal for Lifesaving was a British medal awarded to recognise the saving of life. It has since been replaced by the George Cross.The Albert Medal was first instituted by a Royal Warrant on 7 March 1866 and discontinued in 1971 with the last two awards promulgated in the London Gazette of...
for his actions in bringing the stricken party to safety, after a traumatic journey on the Great Ice Barrier
Ross Ice Shelf
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica . It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than 600 km long, and between 15 and 50 metres high above the water surface...
. He was awarded the Polar Medal
Polar Medal
The Polar Medal is a medal awarded by the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. It was instituted in 1857 as the Arctic Medal and renamed the Polar Medal in 1904.-History:...
with four bars, one of only two men to be so honoured, the other being his contemporary, Frank Wild
Frank Wild
Commander John Robert Francis Wild CBE, RNVR, FRGS , known as Frank Wild, was an explorer...
.
Joyce came from a humble seafaring background and began his naval career as a boy seaman in 1891. His Antarctic experiences began 10 years later, when he joined Scott's Discovery Expedition
Discovery Expedition
The British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–04, generally known as the Discovery Expedition, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since James Clark Ross's voyage sixty years earlier...
as an Able Seaman. In 1907 Shackleton recruited Joyce to take charge of dogs and sledges on the Nimrod Expedition
Nimrod Expedition
The British Antarctic Expedition 1907–09, otherwise known as the Nimrod Expedition, was the first of three expeditions to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton. Its main target, among a range of geographical and scientific objectives, was to be first to the South Pole...
. Subsequently Joyce was engaged in a similar capacity for Douglas Mawson
Douglas Mawson
Sir Douglas Mawson, OBE, FRS, FAA was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer and Academic. Along with Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton, Mawson was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.-Early work:He was appointed geologist to an...
's Australasian Antarctic Expedition
Australasian Antarctic Expedition
The Australasian Antarctic Expedition was an Australasian scientific team that explored part of Antarctica between 1911 and 1914. It was led by the Australian geologist Douglas Mawson, who was knighted for his achievements in leading the expedition. In 1910 he began to plan an expedition to chart...
in 1911, but left the expedition before it departed for the Antarctic. In 1914 Shackleton recruited Joyce for the Ross Sea party; despite his heroics this expedition marked the end of Joyce’s association with the Antarctic, and of his exploring career, although he made repeated attempts to join other expeditions.
Throughout his career Joyce was known as an abrasive personality who attracted adverse as well as positive comments. His effectiveness in the field was widely acknowledged by many of his colleagues, but other aspects of his character were less appreciated – his capacity for bearing grudges, his boastfulness and his distortions of the truth. Joyce's diaries, and the book he wrote based on them, have been condemned as self-serving and the work of a fabulist. He made no significant material gains from his expeditions, living out his post-Antarctic life in humble circumstances before dying suddenly in 1940.
Early years
Royal Hospital School
The Royal Hospital School, , is a British co-educational independent boarding school with naval traditions. It admits pupils from age 11 to 18 through Common Entrance or the school's own exam...
for Navy Orphans at Greenwich
Greenwich
Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...
. Here, in austere surroundings, he received a vocational education that would prepare him for a lower-deck career in the Royal Navy. After leaving the school aged 15 in 1891, he joined the navy as a boy seaman, progressing over the next ten years to Ordinary Seaman and then Able Seaman.
No detailed records of his naval service between 1891 and 1901 appear to have survived. The last-named year saw him serving on HMS Gibraltar
HMS Gibraltar
Seven ships of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Gibraltar, after the British overseas territory of Gibraltar.* The first Gibraltar was a 20-gun sixth-rate built in 1711, rebuilt 1727, and sold 1748...
in Cape Town where, in September, Scott's expedition ship Discovery
RRS Discovery
The RRS Discovery was the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in Britain. Designed for Antarctic research, she was launched in 1901. Her first mission was the British National Antarctic Expedition, carrying Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first, successful...
stopped on the way to the Antarctic. Scott was short-handed, and requested volunteers; from a response of several hundreds, Joyce was one of four seamen chosen to join Discovery. He sailed south with her on 14 October 1901.
Discovery Expedition, 1901–04
Edward Adrian Wilson
Edward Adrian Wilson was a notable English polar explorer, physician, naturalist, painter and ornithologist.-Early life:...
's diaries not at all. It seems that he took readily to Antarctic life, gaining experience in sledging and dog-driving techniques and other aspects of Antarctic exploration. He did not figure in he main journeys of the expedition, although towards the end he joined Arthur Pilbeam and Frank Wild
Frank Wild
Commander John Robert Francis Wild CBE, RNVR, FRGS , known as Frank Wild, was an explorer...
in an attempt to climb Mount Erebus
Mount Erebus
Mount Erebus in Antarctica is the southernmost historically active volcano on Earth, the second highest volcano in Antarctica , and the 6th highest ultra mountain on an island. With a summit elevation of , it is located on Ross Island, which is also home to three inactive volcanoes, notably Mount...
, ascending to some 3000 feet (914.4 m). Joyce was at times badly affected by frostbite
Frostbite
Frostbite is the medical condition where localized damage is caused to skin and other tissues due to extreme cold. Frostbite is most likely to happen in body parts farthest from the heart and those with large exposed areas...
; on one occasion two officers, Michael Barne
Michael Barne
Michael Barne was an officer of the 1901-04 Discovery Expedition and was the last survivor of the expedition.-Early life:...
and George Mulock, held Joyce's frostbitten foot against the pits of their stomachs and kneaded the ankle for several hours to save it from amputation. However, such experiences left Joyce undaunted; the polar historian Beau Riffenburgh
Beau Riffenburgh
Beau Riffenburgh is an author and historian specializing in polar exploration. He is also an award winning American Football coach and author of books on football history.- Early career :...
writes that Joyce was repeatedly drawn to the Antarctic by "a curious combination of affection and antipathy" that "impelled [him] to return again and again".
During the expedition Joyce encountered several men who would feature prominently in Antarctic polar history during the following years, including Scott, Wilson, Frank Wild, Tom Crean, William Lashly
William Lashly
William Lashly was a Royal Navy seaman who was a member of both of Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic expeditions.-Early life:The son of a farm worker, Lashly was born in Hambledon, Hampshire, a village near Portsmouth, England...
, Edgar Evans
Edgar Evans
Petty Officer Edgar Evans was a member of the Polar Party on Robert Falcon Scott's companions on his ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole in 1911–1912...
and, most significantly, Ernest Shackleton. Joyce made several sledging trips with Shackleton and created an impression of competence and reliability. He also impressed Scott as "sober, honest, loyal and intelligent", and expedition organiser Sir Clements Markham later described him as "an honest and trustworthy man". His reward, at the conclusion of the expedition, was promotion to Petty Officer 1st Class
Petty Officer 1st Class
Petty officer, 1st class, PO1, is a Naval non-commissioned member rank of the Canadian Forces. It is senior to the rank of petty officer 2nd-class and its equivalents, and junior to chief petty officer 2nd-class and its equivalents. Its Army and Air Force equivalent is warrant officer .The French...
on Scott's recommendation. However, he had been bitten by the bug of Antarctic exploration, and ordinary naval duty no longer appealed. He left the navy in 1905 but found shore life unsatisfying and re-enlisted in 1906. When the chance came a year later to join Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition, he took it immediately.
British Antarctic Expedition (Nimrod) 1907–09
When Shackleton was selecting the crew for his Antarctic expedition in Nimrod, Joyce was one of his earliest recruits. Most accounts tell the story that Shackleton saw Joyce on a bus that was passing his expedition offices, sent someone out to fetch him, and recruited him on the spot. To join the expedition, Joyce bought his release from the Navy; in later years he would claim that Shackleton had failed to recompense him for this, despite a promise to do so, one of several disputes over money which eventually strained his relations with Shackleton. Joyce, Shackleton and Frank Wild were the only members of the expedition with previous Antarctic experience, and on the basis of his Discovery exploits, Joyce was put in charge of the new expedition's general stores, sledges and dogs. Before departure in August 1907, he and Wild took a crash course in printing at Sir Joseph Causton's printing firm in Hampshire, as Shackleton intended to publish a book or magazine while in the Antarctic.Nimrod left New Zealand on 1 January 1908, and as a fuel-saving measure was towed towards the Antarctic pack ice by the tug Koonya. On 23 January, by now under her own power, she reached the Ross Ice Shelf
Ross Ice Shelf
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica . It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than 600 km long, and between 15 and 50 metres high above the water surface...
(then known as the "Great Ice Barrier", or "Barrier"), where Shackleton planned to base his headquarters in an inlet discovered during the Discovery voyage. This proved impossible; the inlet, where Scott and Shackleton had taken balloon flights in February 1902, had greatly expanded to become an open bay, christened the "Bay of Whales". Shackleton was convinced that the ice was not secure enough as a landing ground, and could find no feasible alternative site on nearby King Edward VII Land. Before leaving for the Antarctic Shackleton had promised Scott that he would not base his expedition in or near Scott's former headquarters in McMurdo Sound
McMurdo Sound
The ice-clogged waters of Antarctica's McMurdo Sound extend about 55 km long and wide. The sound opens into the Ross Sea to the north. The Royal Society Range rises from sea level to 13,205 feet on the western shoreline. The nearby McMurdo Ice Shelf scribes McMurdo Sound's southern boundary...
. Shackleton was now forced to break this agreement, and take Nimrod to the safer waters of McMurdo Sound. The site finally chosen as a base was at Cape Royds
Cape Royds
Cape Royds, Antarctica, is a dark rock cape forming the west extremity of Ross Island, facing on McMurdo Sound. Discovered by the Discovery Expedition and named for Lieutenant Charles W.R. Royds, Royal Navy, who acted as meteorologist for the expedition...
, some 20 miles (32.2 km) north of Scott's old Discovery headquarters at Hut Point. During the extended and often difficult process of unloading the ship Joyce remained ashore, looking after the dogs and ponies, and helping to build the expedition hut. In March Joyce assisted the party that made the first successful ascent of Mount Erebus
Mount Erebus
Mount Erebus in Antarctica is the southernmost historically active volcano on Earth, the second highest volcano in Antarctica , and the 6th highest ultra mountain on an island. With a summit elevation of , it is located on Ross Island, which is also home to three inactive volcanoes, notably Mount...
, although he did not make the climb himself.
During the following winter Joyce, with Wild's help, printed copies of the expedition book Aurora Australis, edited by Shackleton. About 25 or 30 copies of the book were printed, sewn and bound. Otherwise Joyce was busy preparing equipment and stores for the next season's journey to the Pole in which, in view of his experience, he fully expected to be included. However, various mishaps had reduced the number of ponies to four, so Shackleton cut the southern party to that number. One of those dropped was Joyce, on advice from expedition doctor Eric Marshall
Eric Marshall
Eric Marshall was an Antarctica explorer with the Nimrod Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1907-09, and was one of the party of four who reached Furthest South at on 9 January 1909...
, who noted that Joyce had a liver problem and the early stages of heart disease. Frank Wild, who along with Marshall and Jameson Adams
Jameson Adams
Sir Jameson Adams was an Antarctic explorer with the Nimrod Expedition, the first expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in an unsuccessful attempt to reach the South Pole. Nevertheless, he was one of the party of four who reached the Polar Plateau for the first time ever, thus showing the way to the...
was selected for the southern journey, wrote in his diary after the party's bid to reach the Pole had fallen short: "If we only had Joyce and Marston here instead of these two useless grub-scoffing beggars" – (Marshall and Adams)– "we would have done it easily." Joyce showed no particular resentment at his exclusion; he assisted the preparatory work and accompanied the polar party on the southward march for the first seven days. In the following months he took charge of enhancing the depots, to ensure adequate supplies for the returning southern party. He deposited a special cache of luxuries at Minna Bluff, together with life-saving food and fuel, earning Wild's spontaneous praise when the cache was discovered.
Shackleton and his party returned safely from their polar journey, on Nimrod's last feasible date for sailing home. They had established a new Farthest South
Farthest South
Farthest South was the term used to denote the most southerly latitudes reached by explorers before the conquest of the South Pole in 1911. Significant steps on the road to the pole were the discovery of lands south of Cape Horn in 1619, Captain James Cook's crossing of the Antarctic Circle in...
at 88°23′S, only 97 nmi (179.6 km; 111.6 mi) from the South Pole
South Pole
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is one of the two points where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth and lies on the opposite side of the Earth from the North Pole...
. Joyce had been ready to remain at the base with a rearguard, to wait for the party or to establish its fate if it did not return in time to catch the ship. Nimrod finally reached London in September 1909 and was prepared, under Joyce's direction, as a floating exhibition of polar artefacts. Shackleton paid him a salary of £250 a year for this (2008 equivalent approx. £18,000), a generous amount for the time. Thereafter Joyce, in the absence of regular paid employment, looked for another expedition.
Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911
Joyce was not invited to join Scott's Terra Nova ExpeditionTerra Nova Expedition
The Terra Nova Expedition , officially the British Antarctic Expedition 1910, was led by Robert Falcon Scott with the objective of being the first to reach the geographical South Pole. Scott and four companions attained the pole on 17 January 1912, to find that a Norwegian team led by Roald...
, although several of Shackleton's men were, including Frank Wild who declined. Instead, Joyce and Wild both signed up for Douglas Mawson
Douglas Mawson
Sir Douglas Mawson, OBE, FRS, FAA was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer and Academic. Along with Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton, Mawson was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.-Early work:He was appointed geologist to an...
's Australasian Antarctic Expedition
Australasian Antarctic Expedition
The Australasian Antarctic Expedition was an Australasian scientific team that explored part of Antarctica between 1911 and 1914. It was led by the Australian geologist Douglas Mawson, who was knighted for his achievements in leading the expedition. In 1910 he began to plan an expedition to chart...
. Joyce travelled to Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
to acquire dogs for this expedition, and took them on to Tasmania where, according to one account, he was "dismissed" by Mawson before the expedition left Australia. However, this is not conclusive; other accounts simply say that Mawson and Joyce "fell out and parted ways", and in another version Joyce was dropped when Mawson reduced his expedition from three shore parties to two. Mawson reportedly distrusted Joyce, saying that "he spent too much time in hotels", which suggests that drink was behind the problem. Whatever the circumstances, Joyce did not sail; he remained in Australia, obtaining work with the Sydney Harbour Trust
Sydney Harbour Trust
The Sydney Harbour Trust began operations on 1 November 1900 with responsibility for the Navigation Department and Marine Board of Sydney Harbour. The Trust, as governed by an act of the New South Wales Parliament consisted of three commissioners appointed by the Governor of New South Wales...
.
Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17
Ross Sea party
Joyce, still in Australia, was contacted by Shackleton in February 1914 with outline plans for the Trans-Antarctic Expedition, and a place for Joyce in the supporting Ross Sea party. Should the plan change to a one-ship format, Joyce would join the Weddell SeaWeddell Sea
The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha Coast, Queen Maud Land. To the east of Cape Norvegia is...
party. Joyce would later claim, without verification, that Shackleton had offered him a place on the main transcontinental party. In his subsequent book, The South Polar Trail published in 1929, Joyce also misrepresented the nature of his appointment to the Ross Sea party, omitting Shackleton's order placing him under an officer and claiming that he had been given sole authority over dogs and sledging.
The task of the Ross Sea party, under the command of another Nimrod veteran, Aeneas Mackintosh
Aeneas Mackintosh
Aeneas Lionel Acton Mackintosh was a British Merchant Navy officer and Antarctic explorer, who commanded the Ross Sea party as part of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17...
, was to establish a base in McMurdo Sound and then lay a series of supply depots across the Ross Ice Shelf to assist the transcontinental party. Shackleton saw this task as routine; he wrote: "I had not anticipated that the work would present any great difficulties". However, the party had been assembled rather hurriedly, and was inexperienced. Only Joyce and Mackintosh had been to the Antarctic before, and Mackintosh's participation in polar work had been brief; he had been invalided from the Nimrod Expedition before the initial landing, after an accident led to the loss of his right eye and had returned only for the final stages of the expedition
Major setbacks
Mackintosh further vexed Joyce by deciding to lead this depot-laying party himself, unmoved by Joyce’s claim to have independent auhthority over this area. The party was divided into two teams, and the journey began on 24 January, in an atmosphere of muddle. Initial attempts at travelling on the Barrier were thwarted by the condition of the surface, and Mackintosh’s team got lost on the sea ice between Cape Evans and Hut Point. Joyce privately gloated over this evidence of the captain’s inexperience. The teams eventually reached the 79° mark, and laid the "Bluff depot" there (Minna Bluff
Minna Bluff
Minna Bluff is a rocky promontory at the eastern end of a volcanic Antarctic peninsula projecting deep into the Ross Ice Shelf at . It forms a long, narrow arm which culminates in a south-pointing hook feature , and is the subject of research into Antarctic cryosphere history, funded by the...
was a prominent visible landmark at this latitude) on 9 February. It seemed that Joyce’s party had the enjoyed the easier journey. Mackintosh’s plan to take the dogs on to the 80° mark led to more words between him and Joyce, who argued that several dogs had already died and that the remainder should needed to be kept for future journeys, but again he was overruled. On 20 February the party reached the 80° latitude and laid their depot there. The outcome of this journey was 105 lb (47.6 kg) of provisions and fuel at 80°S and 158 lb (71.7 kg) at 79°S. But a further 450 lb (204.1 kg), intended for the depots, had been dumped on the journey, to save weight.
By this time men and dogs were worn out. On the return journey, in appalling Barrier weather, all the dogs perished, as Joyce had predicted, and the party returned to Hut Point on 24 March exhausted and severely frostbitten. After being delayed for ten weeks at Hut Point by the condition of the sea ice, the party finally got back to their base at Cape Evans on 2 June. They then learned that Aurora, with most of the shore party's stores and equipment still aboard, had been torn from its moorings in a gale, and blown far out to sea with no prospect of swift return. Fortunately, the rations for the next season's depot-laying had been landed before the ship’s involuntary departure. However, the shore party’s own food, fuel, clothing and equipment had been largely carried away; replacements would have to be improvised from supplies left at Cape Evans after Scott's 1910–13 Terra Nova expedition, augmented by seal meat and blubber. In these circumstances Joyce proved his worth as a "master scavenger" and improviser, unearthing from Scott’s abandoned stores, among other treasures, a large canvas tent from which he fashioned roughly tailored clothing. He also set about stitching 500 calico bags, to hold the depot rations.
Depot-laying journey
The party set out on 1 September 1915. The men were under-trained and half-fit, in primitive clothing and with home-made equipment. With only five remaining dogs the task would mostly be one of manhaulingManhauling
Manhauling, often expressed as man-hauling, means the pulling forward of sledges, trucks or other load-carrying vehicles by human power unaided by animals or machines...
. Before beginning the march south—a return distance of 800 nmi (1,481.6 km; 920.6 mi)—approximately 3800 pounds (1,723.7 kg) of stores had to be taken to the base depot at Minna Bluff
Minna Bluff
Minna Bluff is a rocky promontory at the eastern end of a volcanic Antarctic peninsula projecting deep into the Ross Ice Shelf at . It forms a long, narrow arm which culminates in a south-pointing hook feature , and is the subject of research into Antarctic cryosphere history, funded by the...
. This phase of the task lasted until 28 December. Mackintosh had divided his forces into two parties, himself in charge of one and Joyce of the other. The two men continued to disagree over methods; finally, Joyce confronted Mackintosh with incontrovertible evidence that his party's methods were much the more effective, and Mackintosh capitulated. "I never came across such an idiot in charge of men", Joyce wrote in his diary.
Arnold Spencer-Smith
Arnold Patrick Spencer-Smith was a British clergyman and amateur photographer who joined Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17, as Chaplain and photographer on the Ross Sea party. The hardship of the expedition resulted in Spencer-Smith's death...
and Mackintosh himself—were by this time showing signs of physical breakdown, as the long march south began from Bluff Depot towards Mount Hope
Mount Hope (Antarctica)
Mount Hope is a dome-shaped hill, rising to approximately , situated at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier, Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica at . It was discovered on 3 December 1908, by Ernest Shackleton and his south polar party, on their journey towards the South Pole during the Nimrod Expedition...
at 83°30′S, where the final depot was to be laid. The party was reduced to six when three men were forced to turn back because of a Primus stove failure. With Mackintosh and Joyce in the final party were Spencer-Smith, Ernest Wild
Ernest Wild
Henry Ernest Wild AM , known as Ernest Wild, was a British Royal Naval seaman and Antarctic explorer, a younger brother of Frank Wild...
(younger brother of Frank), Dick Richards and Victor Hayward
Victor Hayward
Victor George Hayward AM was a London-born accounts clerk whose taste for adventure took him to Antarctica as a member of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17...
. With four dogs they trekked southward, increasingly afflicted by frostbite, snow blindness
Snow blindness
Photokeratitis or ultraviolet keratitis is a painful eye condition caused by exposure of insufficiently protected eyes to the ultraviolet rays from either natural or artificial sources. Photokeratitis is akin to a sunburn of the cornea and conjunctiva, and is not usually noticed until several...
and, eventually, scurvy
Scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...
. Spencer-Smith collapsed, and thereafter had to be carried on the sledge. Mackintosh, barely able to walk, fought on until the final depot was laid at Mount Hope. On the homeward journey the effective leadership of the party fell increasingly to Joyce, as Mackintosh's condition deteriorated until, like Spencer-Smith, he had to be carried on the sledge. The journey became a protracted struggle which eventually cost the life of Spencer-Smith and took the others to the limits of their endurance. Mackintosh suffered further physical and mental collapse, and had to be left in the tent while Joyce, himself suffering from severe snow blindness, led the rest to the safety of Hut Point. He and Ernest Wild then returned for Mackintosh, and the five survivors were all back at Hut Point on 18 March 1916.
Rescue
All five men were showing symptoms of scurvy with varying severity. However, a diet of fresh seal meat, rich in Vitamin CVitamin C
Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress...
, enabled them to recover slowly. By mid-April they were ready to consider travelling the final 13 miles (20.9 km) across the frozen sea to the base at Cape Evans.
Joyce tested the sea-ice on 18 April and found it firm, but the following day a blizzard from the south swept all the ice away. The ambience at Hut Point was gloomy, and the unrelieved diet of seal was depressing. This seemed particularly to affect Mackintosh, and on 8 May, despite the urgent pleadings of Joyce, Richards and Ernest Wild, he decided to risk the re-formed ice and walk to Cape Evans. Victor Hayward volunteered to accompany him. Joyce recorded in his diary: "I fail to understand how these people are so anxious to risk their lives again". Shortly after their departure a blizzard descended, and the two were never seen again.
Joyce and the others learned the fate of Mackintosh and Hayward only when they were finally able to reach Cape Evans in July. Joyce immediately set about organising searches for traces of the missing men; in the subsequent months parties were sent to search the coasts and the islands in McMurdo Sound, but to no avail. Joyce also organised journeys to recover geological samples left on the Barrier and to visit the grave of Spencer-Smith, where a large cross was erected. In the absence of the ship, the seven remaining survivors lived quietly, until on 10 January 1917, the refitted Aurora arrived with Shackleton aboard to take them home. They learned then that their depot-laying efforts had been futile, Shackleton's ship Endurance
Endurance (1912 ship)
The Endurance was the three-masted barquentine in which Sir Ernest Shackleton sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition...
having been crushed by the Weddell Sea ice nearly two years previously.
Post-expedition career
After his return to New Zealand Joyce was hospitalised, mainly from the effects of snow blindness, and according to his own account had to wear dark glasses for a further 18 months. During this period he married Beatrice Curtlett from Christchurch. He was now probably unfit for further polar work, although he attempted, unsuccessfully, to rejoin the Navy in 1918. In September 1919 he was seriously injured in a car accident, which led to months of convalescence followed by a return to England. In 1920 he signed up for a new Antarctic expedition to be led by John Cope of the Ross Sea party, but this venture proved abortive. He continued to maintain his claims to financial compensation from Shackleton, which caused a breach between them, and he was not invited to join Shackleton's Quest expedition which departed in 1921. He applied to join the British EverestMount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...
expedition of 1921–22, but was rejected.
He was in the public eye again in 1923 when he was awarded the Albert Medal
Albert Medal (lifesaving)
The Albert Medal for Lifesaving was a British medal awarded to recognise the saving of life. It has since been replaced by the George Cross.The Albert Medal was first instituted by a Royal Warrant on 7 March 1866 and discontinued in 1971 with the last two awards promulgated in the London Gazette of...
for his efforts to save the lives of Mackintosh and Spencer-Smith during on the 1916 depot-laying journey. Richards received the same award; Hayward, and also Ernest Wild who had died of typhoid during naval service in the Mediterranean in 1918, received the award posthumously. In 1929 Joyce published a contentious version of his diaries under the title The South Polar Trail, in which he boosted his own role, played down the contributions of others, and incorporated fictitious colourful details. Thereafter he indulged in various abortive schemes for further expeditions and wrote numerous articles and stories based on his exploits, eventually settling into a quiet life as a hotel porter in London. He died from natural causes, aged about 65, on 2 May 1940. The claim (by Bickel) that Joyce lived into his eighties, beyond the date (1958) of the first Antarctica crossing by Vivian Fuchs
Vivian Fuchs
Sir Vivian Ernest Fuchs FRS was an English explorer whose expeditionary team completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica in 1958.- Biography :...
and his party, is not supported by any other sources. Joyce is commemorated in Antarctica by Mount Joyce
Mount Joyce
Mount Joyce is a prominent, dome-shaped mountain, 1,830 m, standing 8 miles northwest of Mount Howard in the Prince Albert Mountains, Victoria Land, on the south side of David Glacier...
at 75°36′S 160°38′E.
Assessment
Polar chronicler Roland HuntfordRoland Huntford
Roland Huntford is an author, principally of biographies of Polar explorers. He lives in Cambridge, and was formerly Scandinavian correspondent of The Observer, also acting as their winter sports correspondent...
sums up Joyce as a "strange mixture of fraud, flamboyance and ability". This mixed assessment is endorsed in the assortment of views expressed by those associated with him. Dick Richards of the Ross Sea party described him as "a kindly soul and a good pal", and others shared the favourable opinions expressed by Scott and Markham, confirm Joyce as a "jolly good sort", though unsuited for command. On the other hand, Eric Marshall
Eric Marshall
Eric Marshall was an Antarctica explorer with the Nimrod Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1907-09, and was one of the party of four who reached Furthest South at on 9 January 1909...
of the Nimrod Expedition had found him "of limited intelligence, resentful and incompatible", while John King Davis
John King Davis
John King Davis, CBE was an English-born Australian explorer and navigator notable for his work captaining exploration ships in Antarctic waters as well as for establishing meteorological stations on Macquarie Island in the subantarctic and on Willis Island in the Coral Sea.-Early life:Davis's...
, when refusing to join the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, told Shackleton: "I absolutely decline to be associated with any enterprise with which people of the Joyce type are connected".
Joyce's versions of events recorded in his published diaries have been described as unreliable and sometimes as outright invention—a "self-aggrandizing epic". Specific examples of this "fabulism" include his self-designation as "Captain" after the Ross Sea expedition; his invented claim to have seen Scott's death tent on the Barrier; the misrepresentation of his instructions from Shackleton regarding his sledging role, and his claim to independence in the field; his claim to have been offered a place on the transcontinental party when Shackleton had made it clear he did not want him, and his habit, late in life, of writing anonymously to the press praising "the famous Polar Explorer Ernest Mills Joyce". This self-promotion neither surprised nor upset his former comrades. "It is what I would have expected", said Richards. "He was bombastic [...] but true-hearted and a staunch friend". Alexander Stevens, the party's chief scientist, concurred. They knew that Joyce, for all his swaggering style, had the will and determination to "drag men back from certain death". Lord Shackleton, the explorer's son, named Joyce (with Mackintosh and Richards) as "one of those who emerge from the (Ross Sea party) story as heroes".
Sources
- Bickel, Lennard: Shackleton's Forgotten Men Random House, London, 2000 ISBN 0-7126-6807-1
- Fisher, M and J: Shackleton (biography) James Barrie Books, London, 1957
- Huxley, Elspeth: Scott of the Antarctic Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1977 ISBN 0-297-77433-6
- Huntford, RolandRoland HuntfordRoland Huntford is an author, principally of biographies of Polar explorers. He lives in Cambridge, and was formerly Scandinavian correspondent of The Observer, also acting as their winter sports correspondent...
: Shackleton (biography) Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1985 ISBN 0-340-25007-0 - Riffenburgh, BeauBeau RiffenburghBeau Riffenburgh is an author and historian specializing in polar exploration. He is also an award winning American Football coach and author of books on football history.- Early career :...
: Nimrod Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2004 ISBN 0-7475-7253-4 - Scott, Robert FalconRobert Falcon ScottCaptain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO was a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13...
:The Voyage of the Discovery Smith, Elder & Co, London, 1905 - Shackleton, ErnestErnest ShackletonSir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...
: South Century Ltd edition, ed. Peter King, London, 1991 ISBN 0-7126-3927-6 - Tyler-Lewis, KellyKelly Tyler-LewisKelly Tyler-Lewis is a filmmaker and author. Kelly is best known for winning a 2002 Emmy for her historical documentary film, Shackleton’s Voyage of Endurance, which won as 'Best Historical Documentary'. The film had also been nominated for 'Best Documentary'...
: The Lost Men Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2007 ISBN 978-0-7475-7972-4 - Wilson, EdwardEdward Adrian WilsonEdward Adrian Wilson was a notable English polar explorer, physician, naturalist, painter and ornithologist.-Early life:...
: Diary of the Discovery Expedition Blandford Press, London, 1975 ISBN 0-7137-0431-4
External links
- Cool Antarctica, pictures of Antarctica, information and travel guide at www.coolantarctica.com (History and Ships of the Antarctic)