An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor

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In 2010, Tim created a Facebook campaign dedicated to achieving official recognition for the Annascaul born explorer. Their mission had now, inadvertently, become a fight for survival as the 28 man crew hauled provisions and 3 lifeboats across Antarctica. In their wake, the Endurance had succumbed to the vice-like grip of the ice and broken, she sank beneath to her icy grave witnessed at a distance by her crew. In a sad twist of fate, when his own hour of need arrived, there was no one available with the life-saving skills he himself had displayed on many occasions. Among the first experiences aboard HMS Ringarooma, the ship to which he was assigned, was a 12-day period of quarantine in Nouméa, New Caledonia. The crew’s enforced isolation was a safety measure brought about to prevent any further outbreaks of the deadly bubonic plague which had caused 103 deaths after first being detected in Sydney during the early months of 1900. From Nouméa, Crean and his shipmates embarked upon a three-month tour of the New Hebrides (modern-day Vanuatu), an archipelago of more than 80 islands, located off the northeast coast of Australia. In the land-grabbing days of empire, tensions were high between French and British ships sailing to the outlying islands around Australia, as each sought sovereignty of territory as yet unclaimed by either nation. The particular mission of Ringarooma over the course of the southern hemisphere’s winter period was described as a “punitive mission”. The aim was to subjugate warring tribes of the region.

It was a firm discipline that Crean maintained for the rest of his life. While today a famous polar explorer might employ a smooth-talking public relations executive to promote his image or generally raise his profile, Crean remained tight-lipped and spoke to no one about his life. In 1927 he opened a pub in Annascaul. Obviously feeling that the passions of the war had cooled by then, he felt able to call it the South Pole Inn. But when visitors dropped in to see the renowned explorer Crean would politely make his excuses and leave. Tom Crean lived in Annascaul until his death in 1938, and all those alive today who remember him share one common memory—that he never spoke about his life as an explorer. Never once did Tom Crean give an interview to a journalist or an author. Even his two surviving daughters were told precious little about his adventures. Crean’s politics His subsequent display of heroism would come at a time when Crean valued his chances of becoming among the pioneers to negotiate their way to the South Pole.In 1938, Tom Crean passed away at the age of 61 and his funeral was the largest Annascaul had ever seen. He’d contracted peritonitis after having to travel to Cork via ambulance when denied a life-saving appendectomy in the Tralee hospital closest to his home because no doctor capable of performing the operation was on duty when he was admitted. On the Discovery expedition, Tom Crean also experienced being caught out in temperatures as low as -54 C, falling through thin ice into frigid waters, twice almost losing his life as a result and of course living on a ship that is completely entrapped by ice, for almost two years. When Discovery finally slipped from its icy hold and returned to Portsmouth in September 1904, Tom had firmly established himself as one of the most reliable and valuable crew members aboard, so much so that Scott singled him out for special mention for his ‘ meritorious service throughout‘ and promoted him to Petty Officer 1st Class. In October 1901, Ringarooma sailed to New Zealand to relieve HMS Mildura. It was a journey that would determine the direction of Crean’s life and career.

The men tried to trek to land by hauling their supplies in modified lifeboats, but on each occasion progress was futile. They camped on the vast ice floes at Ocean Camp, and Patience Camp. These were places the men named themselves, and each camp was situated at the point that their attempted treks were abandoned. ScottPole87S” by Photograph by Henry R Bowers (d. 1912) – Scott’s Last Expedition Vol 1 Smith, Elder & Co, London 1913. Licensed under PD-US via Wikipedia. It was probably a wise decision not to speak of his exploits. Tragically Tom’s brother Cornelius, who was a serving RIC officer, was killed in an IRA ambush, in Ballinspittle, Co. Cork on the 25th of April 1920. Evans, who was unable to attend, had arranged by telegraph, upon hearing the sad news, for the floral tribute to be sent through Crean’s former Terra Nova colleague, Robert Forde.

Later Life

Home is the Sailor, Home from the Sea” and atop of the tomb lay a ceramic bowl of flowers which arrived via a white Rolls Royce sent by the man whose life he’d saved some 26 years earlier. Evans, who was unable to attend, had arranged by telegraph upon hearing the sad news, for the floral tribute to be sent through Crean’s former Terra Nova colleague, Robert Forde. Crean the family man in the late 1920s, with wife Nell and daughters Mary (left) and Eileen. (Crean Family)

Fearing Evans would die unless something drastic was done, Tom Crean decided to strike for Hut Point himself, leaving Lashly to care for Evans in a hastily erected tent. Crean took no sleeping bag with him as he did not intend stopping until he had reached help, and the only sustenance he carried were a couple of biscuits and some chocolate. Yet, amazingly after 18 hours Crean arrived at Hut Point, just ahead of a ferocious blizzard, and raised the alarm. It was February 19th and Tom Crean had just completed an act which has been widely hailed as the single most, greatest act of bravery, in the history of exploration. When the blizzard had passed a rescue team set off to find Evans and Lashly, and politely refused Crean’s plea to join them. On this date, and after 5 years of intense research, the most complete biography ever written about Tom Crean was released under the highly reputable publishing house, Irish Academic Press, under its imprint, Merrion Press. Tom Crean is one of the most iconic figures in Irish history. Born in 1877 in County Kerry, he enlisted in the Royal Navy at the age of sixteen, the start of a career that would bring him to the most extreme environments on Earth. Crean prepares for the trek to the South Pole with Captain Scott in 1911. (Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge) After a hard apprenticeship training under a strict naval regime, one of Tom Crean’s earliest naval assignments was to the Pacific Station in South America. There, whilst serving aboard the ships, HMS Royal Arthur and later, HMS Wild Swan, he was thrust into an international incident that, for a time, threatened to escalate into a wider conflict. Fortunately, the incident, in Corinto, Nicaragua, ended peacefully. After his initial years of service in the Americas was up, Tom Crean returned to England where he would continue to build up his arsenal of naval skills at shore training establishments.The Discovery expedition was famed as one that laid the marker for future attempts to break the records for reaching farthest South yet it was also noted for being the one that was to divide the two leaders. Tom Crean’s penury is more easily dealt with than the complexities of political and social life in Ireland during the 1920s and 1930s. Crean was one of ten children born to impoverished hill farmers outside the small Kerry village of Annascaul on the Dingle Peninsula. Education was rudimentary, and youngsters like Crean were of more value to the family working in the fields than studying mathematics or writing essays. Crean left school with little more than the ability to read and write, a significant fact that would contribute to his later profile. He was a modest character, who always seemed unfazed by the enormity of his achievements, but he had returned to Ireland as a man who had served in the British Navy, at a time when the country was in the middle of a battle for independence, from the very nation he had served under. Having spent his early career in the building trade, Tim began writing via his own online consumer advice forum in 1999. As a result, he was signed up by ITV to act as Project Consultant on popular television DIY shows such as ITV’s Better Homes, followed by Granada’s 60 Minute Makeover. Tim was then commissioned to take a lead role in a two-part special for ITV’s Tonight With Trevor McDonald. In a sociopolitical experiment that subsequently rendered the project a great success, transforming a derelict Liverpool terraced house into a fully refurbished home at a fraction of the cost of its proposed demolition and the rehousing of its neighbourhood community.

At this point in the story, the news publications and history books, quite naturally, focus their attention on Scott’s failed attempt to be the first human to plant a flag at the South Pole. It was though, an accolade that would fall to the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Because the operation had been delayed, an infection had developed, and after a week in the hospital, the unheralded hero of three major Antarctic expeditions passed away.His strong faith, it seems, had seen him through a host of perilous and historic journeys most ordinary humans could not have survived.