The voyage of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his 28 men aboard the Endurance bound for Antarctica, which began in 1914, is a story too few know but all should hear. The Imperial Trans-Atlantic Expedition, under Shackleton's command, was the first British Antarctic expedition after Norwegian Ronald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole in December 1911. Inspired by this feat, and his own earlier efforts to reach the pole, Shackleton proposed an expedition that would traverse the Antarctic continent from the Waddell Sea on the Atlantic to the Ross Sea on the Pacific, transiting via the pole. It was to be a journey of discovery, but one fraught with much danger.

On August 9, 1914, Shackleton and his crew left Plymouth, England, bound for Antarctica. The Endurance stopped briefly i…