Oates Land is a region of Antarctica . It is variously defined as a portion of the East Antarctica near the coast stretching along and inland from the Oates Coast (see map) and as an officially delineated wedge-shaped segment of the Australian Antarctic Territory . The segment of the Australian claim extends between 153°45' E and 160° E, forming a wedge between Latitude 60° S and the South Pole . It is bounded in the east by the Ross Dependency and overlaps George V Land to the west.
25-793: Oates Land was discovered in February 1911 by Lieutenant Harry Pennell of the Royal Navy , commander of the Terra Nova , the expedition ship of the British Antarctic Expedition , 1910–13. It is named after Captain Lawrence Edward Grace "Titus" Oates of the 6th (Iniskilling) Dragoons , who, with Captain Robert Falcon Scott and three companions, lost his life on the return journey from
50-465: A march from Cape Evans to the as-yet-unreached South Pole. This march was to be done during the Antarctic summer in 1911–1912. Scott's strategy called for a large team of men, ponies, motor sledges and dogs to start out southward from their base, hauling food and fuel on sledges. As the team progressed southward, the leader would successively send support groups back home, leaving a small "Pole party" of
75-514: A written meditation on the themes of self-sacrifice and heroism. Although The Worst Journey in the World was published only nine years after the end of the Terra Nova expedition, that short length of time had made clear that new technology, particularly caterpillar-tread vehicles —proposed for snow travel by Scott in a 1908 memorandum and developed by his engineer, Reginald Skelton , for
100-674: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Harry Pennell Commander Harry Lewin Lee Pennell (1882 – 31 May 1916) was a Royal Navy officer who served on the Terra Nova Expedition . He was responsible for the first sighting of Oates Coast on 22 February 1911, and named it after Captain Lawrence Oates . He only spent short periods in Antarctica, returning with the Terra Nova to wait out
125-780: Is a critical position. We may find ourselves in safety at the next depot, but there is a horrid element of doubt." By 10 March, it became evident the dog teams were not coming: "The dogs which would have been our salvation have evidently failed. Meares [the dog-driver] had a bad trip home I suppose. It's a miserable jumble." Cherry had been given the task of using the dog teams to meet Scott's party and assist them home, but in fact Cherry-Garrard did not penetrate beyond One Ton Depot, only 11 miles (18 km) distant from Scott's final location where he and his companions froze to death. In 1912–1913, Cherry-Garrard and other expedition members once again marched southward, this time to try to find traces of their lost comrades. Cherry-Garrard's description of
150-411: Is placed on the top of the ice-house. The steersman, however, steers by a binnacle compass placed aft in front of his wheel. But these two compasses for various reasons do not read alike at a given moment, while the standard is the truer of the two. 'At intervals, then, Pennell or the officer of the watch orders the steersman to "Stand by for a steady," and goes up to the standard compass, and watches
175-532: The Ross Ice Shelf under conditions of complete darkness and temperatures of −40 °C (−40 °F) and below. All three men, barely alive, returned from Cape Crozier with their egg specimens, which were stored. It was this winter journey, not the later expedition to the South Pole , that Cherry-Garrard described as the "worst journey in the world". The expedition then swung into preparations for
200-616: The 1910 expedition—and later aeroplanes, would revolutionise future work in the Antarctic and make much of the suffering endured by Scott and his men unnecessary. The next visitors to the South Pole ice surface, in October ;1956, would arrive and depart by airplane . The Worst Journey in the World asks, but does not answer, the question of whether this suffering was futile, or whether it would inspire future human beings facing very different challenges. The winter journey to
225-587: The Antarctic and prepared to meet Scott and his four companions on the return journey. But for a variety of reasons, partly described in The Worst Journey in the World , the rendezvous failed. On the return journey from the Pole, Scott reached the 82° 30′ S meeting point for the dog teams three days ahead of schedule, noting in his diary for 27 February 1912: "We are naturally always discussing possibility of meeting dogs, where and when, etc. It
250-563: The Royal Navy is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a British explorer is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . The Worst Journey in the World The Worst Journey in the World is a 1922 memoir by Apsley Cherry-Garrard of Robert Falcon Scott 's Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole in 1910–1913. It has earned wide praise for its frank treatment of
275-962: The South Pole in 1912. The coastal region of Oates Land has been photographed or explored by the United States Navy during Operation Highjump (1946–47), the Soviet Antarctic Expedition (1958), Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (1959, 1961 and 1962), the US Navy (1960–62), and the US Geological Survey (1963–64). [REDACTED] This article incorporates public domain material from "Oates Land" . Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey . [REDACTED] 69°30′S 159°00′E / 69.500°S 159.000°E / -69.500; 159.000 This Oates Land location article
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#1732775947989300-448: The compass card before him, say S. 47 E., and knows that this is the course which is to be steered by the binnacle compass. 'Pennell's yells were so frequent and ear-piercing that he became famous for them, and many times in working on the ropes in rough seas and big winds, we have been cheered by this unmusical noise over our heads.' Excerpt from The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard . Pennell married Katie Hodson,
325-445: The difficulties of the expedition, the causes of its disastrous outcome, and the meaning of human suffering under extreme conditions. In 1910, Cherry-Garrard and his fellow explorers travelled by sailing vessel, the Terra Nova , from Cardiff to McMurdo Sound , Antarctica . "Cherry" was teased at first by some of the other members of this expedition because of his lack of Antarctic experience, his lack of specialised credentials for
350-693: The donation. Cherry-Garrard describes how he was told that the retrieved eggs had not added much to their knowledge of penguin embryology, nor to scientific knowledge as a whole. Elspeth Huxley concludes that the eggs generated "negative information". The Worst Journey was republished in 1994 as the first numerical entry of the Picador Travel Classics , and in 2006, by British publishing house Penguin Books as part of their celebrated Penguin Classics series of literature works. The book
375-416: The family of birds as a whole – had evolved. The expedition's chief scientist Wilson determined to try to collect specimens based upon this theory. As the survivors of the Terra Nova returned to England several years later, recapitulation theory had begun to be discredited. Cherry-Garrard turned over the egg specimens to embryologists at London's Natural History Museum , who were largely uninterested in
400-694: The fittest men to make the final advance to the South Pole. Cherry-Garrard accompanied the initial team across the Ross Ice Shelf and up the Beardmore Glacier , the slide that discharges ice from the Antarctic Plateau down onto the shelf. At the edge of the polar plateau Scott told him that he would have to return northward. The men not chosen to go on to the Pole all returned to the base camp at Cape Evans. Some returned by ship to Britain; others, including Cherry-Garrard, stayed in
425-515: The frozen tent that contained three of them is one of the most dramatic sections of the book. Inside the tent were the remains of Scott and Cherry-Garrard's two companions on the Worst Journey , Bowers and Wilson. In his book, Cherry-Garrard extensively defends his actions and non-actions, and polar historian Roland Huntford has diagnosed the Worst Journey as "an immature but persuasive, highly charged apologia ". Cherry-Garrard closes with
450-403: The needle. Suppose the course laid down is S. 40 E. A liner would steer almost true to this course unless there was a big wind or sea. But not so the old Terra Nova. Even with a good steersman the needle swings a good many degrees either side of the S. 40 E. But as it steadies momentarily on the exact course Pennell shouts his "Steady," the steersman reads just where the needle is pointing on
475-453: The only intellectual amongst the crew. These traits were to serve him well when it came time for him to write down his memories of the expedition. They also caught the eye of the expedition's second-in-command, Edward A. Wilson , who adopted Cherry-Garrard as a protégé. Wilson's personal goal in Antarctica was to recover eggs of the Emperor penguin for scientific study. It was thought at
500-461: The penguin rookery eventually became a case study on how a paradigm shift in scientific methodology can devalue data that had begun to be gathered before the shift. At the time the Terra Nova expedition sailed, many biologists believed in recapitulation theory . They believed that examining the embryos of key species, such as the Emperor penguin, would show how the species – and, by extension, how
525-431: The position of assistant zoologist to which he had been named, and persistent suspicions among some of his comrades that he had in fact bought his way on board by contributing £1,000 to the expedition's troubled funds. Cherry-Garrard responded to these taunts with modesty, a self-sacrificial ability to work hard, and acute observational skills. He was also, according to novelist, biographer, and socialite Nancy Mitford ,
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#1732775947989550-523: The sister of his friend from naval college, on 15 April 1915 during his shore leave. Pennell was promoted to Commander and assigned to HMS Queen Mary , dying in her on 31 May 1916 in the Battle of Jutland , when the ship was sunk by the German ships SMS Seydlitz and SMS Derfflinger . The Pennell Coast of Victoria Land , Antarctica, is named after him. This biographical article related to
575-459: The time that the flightless penguin might shed light on an evolutionary link between reptiles and birds through its embryo. As the bird nests during the Antarctic winter, it was necessary to mount a special expedition in July ;1911, from the expedition's base at Cape Evans , to the penguins' rookery at Cape Crozier . Wilson chose Cherry-Garrard to accompany him and Henry R. Bowers across
600-577: The winters of 1911 and 1912 in Lyttelton, New Zealand. Due to the absence of Robert Falcon Scott on land, Pennell assumed the role of command on the Terra Nova, which would bring fresh supplies back to Antarctica with each voyage. Despite not being a part of the main landing party for the Pole, Pennell was a popular member of the expedition. Herbert Ponting , the photographer of the expedition, recalled in his book The Great White South that Pennell
625-421: Was "the most energetic man I have ever known....when Pennell was not occupied with navigating problems, he was either on watch, or conning from the crow's-nest, or else out on the yard-arms helping the seaman set or shorten sail, or otherwise assisting in the handling of the ship. He was a 'whale for work' ". 'Pennell is the navigator , and the standard compass, owing to its remoteness from iron in this position,
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