Ernest Wild

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Henry Ernest Wild ( 1879 - March 10, 1918 ), known as Ernest Wild , was a British seaman in the Royal Navy and Antarctic explorer. In contrast to his more famous older brother Frank , who went to Antarctica five times, Ernest Wild only went on one expedition, namely the Expedition Endurance 1914 to 1917 as a member of the supporting Ross Sea Party . In recognition of his loyalty to his duty on this expedition, he was posthumously awarded the Albert Medal for saving life.

AuroraCrewRoss.jpg

Early life

Ernest Wild was one of eight brothers, of which Frank was the oldest. The family came from Skelton , which is near Marton , the birthplace of James Cook , to which the family was allegedly related as Wild's mother Mary was born Cook. Ernest followed Frank into the Navy in 1894 and remained in the service for twenty years before joining the Ross Sea Party. While serving in the Mediterranean, he participated in rescue operations in 1908 that followed an earthquake in Messina , Sicily.

Ross Sea Party, 1914-1917

Wild sailed to Antarctica on the Aurora and under the command of Captain Aeneas Mackintosh . Among the expedition members was Ernest Joyce , an old comrade of Frank Wild and the only member of the crew with any real experience with sleds. The task of the group was to create depots on the Ross Ice Shelf in order to support the planned crossing of the continent of the main group of Shackletons from the Weddell Sea . After participating in a poorly prepared first depot facility ride, Wild suffered severe frostbite resulting in the amputation of parts of a toe and the tip of an ear. On May 6, 1915, the Aurora , which still held most of the group's equipment and supplies, was driven out to sea during a storm and could not return. Wild and Ernest Joyce showed themselves to be inventive when it came to fabricating clothes and equipment from goods left behind by Scott's Terra Nova expedition and collecting enough food to tackle the main trip to the depot facility of 1915/16. On this trip, Wild worked with Mackintosh and Arnold Spencer-Smith , the group's chaplain and photographer. Ernest Joyce, Richard W. Richards, and Victor Hayward made the other team. Spencer-Smith soon collapsed and had to be pulled on by sled, Mackintosh was weak and unable to tackle, and the whole group, including Wild, was attacked by scurvy . Somehow the troubled men managed to do their duties at the depot facility and fought their way back to their base in the most terrible weather; Wild cared for Spencer-Smith, who was helpless and eventually died before reaching the safety of a stopover at Hut Point . Here the weak Mackintosh and Hayward recovered, but died later when they risked walking over the pack ice too early. Wild and the other survivors were rescued in January 1917.

Next life

In 1917 Wild returned to the Navy, where he first served on HMS Pembroke and later switched to HMS Biarritz . He died on March 10, 1918 in the Navy Hospital in Malta after contracting typhus . In 1923 he was posthumously awarded the Albert Medal for his efforts to save the lives of Mackintosh and Spencer-Smith. He did not publish any diaries or other records of his Antarctic experiences.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bickel p. 27
  2. ↑ Bickel p. 27
  3. ↑ http://www.heritage.antarctica.org/AHT/CrewRossSeaParty  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.heritage.antarctica.org  
  4. ^ Fisher, p. 401
  5. ^ Tyler-Lewis, p. 267
  6. ↑ http://www.heritage.antarctica.org/AHT/CrewRossSeaParty  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.heritage.antarctica.org  
  7. ↑ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/1914/lostmen.html (article by Kelly Tyler)

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personal data
SURNAME Wild, Ernest
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wild, Henry Ernest (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Royal Navy seaman and Antarctic explorer
DATE OF BIRTH 1879
DATE OF DEATH March 10, 1918