Luis Pardo

Luis Alberto Pardo Villalón (born September 20, 1882 in Santiago de Chile , † February 21, 1935 ibid) was the captain of the steamship Yelcho , with which the 22 crew members of the Antarctic expedition of Ernest Henry Shackleton's Endurance on August 30, 1916 from Elephant Iceland were saved. In Chile he is still called "Piloto Pardo" and is revered as a national hero.

Biographical data

Captain Pardo entered the Chilean Naval School in July 1900 and joined the Chilean Navy as a captain in June 1906. In September 1910 he was appointed captain of the steamship Yelcho and transferred to the naval base in Puerto Williams .

Rescue of the expedition participants of the Endurance

Memorial to the rescue operation with the bow of the Yelcho in Puerto Williams

On Sir Ernest Shackleton's failed Antarctic expedition, the expedition ship Endurance was trapped by pack ice in the Wedell Sea in January 1915 . On October 27, 1915, the Endurance sank because it had been badly damaged by the pressure of the ice. The crew escaped to Elephant Island . Shackleton and five other members of the expedition tried to get help with an open lifeboat. After reaching South Georgia after more than 800 nautical miles , Shackleton organized the rescue operation for the remaining 22 crew members. Three rescue attempts failed. Eventually Shackleton managed to convince the Chilean government to let him have the 36.5-meter-long steamship Yelcho under the command of Captain Pardo. With Shackleton on board, the Yelcho left Punta Arenas on August 25, 1916 . On August 30, she found the crew members of the Endurance left behind on Elephant Island. On September 3, 1916, the Yelcho docked at the port of Punta Arenas to the applause of the people of Punta Arenas and the dignitaries of the Chilean Navy.

After the rescue operation

Memorial plaque in front of the monument

Bust on Elephant Island

After this rescue operation, Captain Pardo was promoted to the rank of first class captain. Further civil and military honors followed. In 1919 he retired from active military service. Later he was Chilean consul in Liverpool . He died in 1935 at the age of 52.

The Pardo Ridge ridge on Elephant Island is named after him. A cape on the northern side of the same island was named Cape Yelcho . He is also the namesake for the Cerro Pardo on the Antarctic Peninsula. The bow of the Yelcho is part of a memorial in Puerto Williams , a Chilean town and naval base on the north coast of Navarino Island in the Beagle Channel .

At Point Wild on Elephant Island there is a bust of Pardo ( HSM 53 ) to commemorate the rescue operation. In the archipelago of the South Shetland Islands, the Villalón Passage bears his name.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ATS - Antarctic Treaty System: HSM 53: Endurance Memorial Site. Retrieved November 16, 2019 . 

Web links

Commons : Luis Pardo  - collection of images, videos and audio files