An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor

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Tom Crean did have a life away from the ice of Antarctica and on September 5th 1917 he married Ellen Herlihy who, like Tom was also from Annascaul. He continued to serve in the Navy, throughout World War 1, and beyond. The last ship Crean would serve on was the Hecla, and it was during this service he suffered a serious fall. As a result of this accident he would retire from the Navy on March 24th 1920, and return to Annascaul where he opened a pub, which he named The South Pole Inn. So instead of a glorious push for the Pole, Crean, Lashly and Evans now faced the prospect of hauling their sledge on a 750 mile return trek, having already spent 9 arduous weeks on the ice. On the fourth of January they waved off the Polar Party, and watched as they slowly disappeared into the vast white distance, never to be seen alive again.

After a five-day sea journey, the weary crew, who’d been subjected to the ravages of Antarctica’s unforgiving landscape and drenched by frozen sea waters, arrived exhausted on a small inlet on the remote and isolated, Elephant Island. The following report of a correspondence sent by an officer of Ringarooma during the mission does not detail how certain tribal customs impacted on the minds of crew members who encountered evidence of them. The mental wellbeing of such witnesses was, in the Victorian era, of little concern. His fledgling years in the British navy had been a baptism of fire and, in February 1900, yet another long-distance assignment awaited as he boarded HMS Diana, bringing him and 450 fellow sailors to Sydney to man the ships of the Australian Station.The visual design of the newly published biography is a radical departure from the self-published editions that preceded it and further information has been added to Tom Crean’s storyboard. A book review, written by Peter Malone of the Irish Mail on Sunday, shortly after its release described the book as ‘a riveting labour of love’and ‘a gripping yarn and a valuable addition to the literature of Antarctic exploration.’ He was laid to rest in Ballynacourty cemetery, not far from his Gortacurraun birthplace, in a family tomb he himself had built. The inscription on the side of his tomb read “Home is the Sailor, Home from the Sea” and atop of the tomb lay a ceramic bowl of flowers sent by Edward Evans, the man whose life he’d saved some 26 years earlier. The biography titled ‘Crean: The Extraordinary Life of an Irish Hero’ takes us from Crean’s early life up to an account of how the campaign to honour Tom Crean, created by Tim Foley in 2010, celebrated a great victory in 2021, when a government-funded scientific vessel was named RV Tom Crean, in recognition of the great Kerryman.

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. No doctor capable of undertaking the operation was available in the Tralee hospital he attended and so he was transferred, via ambulance, in a 70-mile journey to Cork’s Bon Secours hospital where finally his appendix was removed.

The Endurance

Pulling up near the RRS Discovery in New Zealand in 1901 changed the course of Tom Crean's life. Photograph: Matt Loughrey 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. In 2010, Tim created a Facebook campaign dedicated to achieving official recognition for the Annascaul born explorer. 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.

Tom Crean had crammed more excitement and danger into a few years than most people could manage in a lifetime. But recognition eluded him and he drifted half-forgotten into obscurity for most of the following 80 years. The reasons why history has been unkind to Crean are twofold: first, the politics of post-independence Ireland; and second, what George Bernard Shaw described as the greatest of evils and worst of crimes—poverty. The safe return and recovery of one Evans was offset by the loss of another, his friend Taff Evans who, with Scott and the rest of the Polar party, had lost their lives on the return trip from the pole. Edgar “Taff” Evans had earlier confided in his friend Crean about his ambitions on his return to the Gower Peninsula. He was to buy a public house and name it The South Pole. Although not documented, I believe Tom Crean’s gesture to his great friend came in the form of The South Pole Inn, he himself opened in 1929, nine years after his retirement from the Navy. 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.

Of the final eight men that reached within 170 miles of the pole after an arduous trek across Antarctica’s unforgiving terrain, five would be chosen to basque in the glory of being the first to reach the South Pole. Scott chose to disappoint his second in command Lieutenant Evans, William Lashly, another hardy polar veteran and a tearful Tom Crean. As Crean waved goodbye to his colleagues little was he to know that it would be the last time he would see them alive again. Again Crean would excel on this quest, albeit none of the expeditions aims were achieved by the Endurance, but what did unfold from this chapter of failure, was one of, if not the greatest survival story, of all time. And now their own race for survival also began. They trudged and hauled across 230 miles of the Polar Plateau, then 120 miles down the Beardmore Glacier encountering numerous dangers, and near death experiences, before the final 400 miles, across the Barrier, stood between them and the sanctuary of one the huts. Tom probably left school around the age of 12, with little more than the ability to read and write, and he would have done so to help out on the family farm. It is thought that one day while at work on the farm, and tending to cattle, Tom allowed them to stray into a field of potatoes, much to his father’s annoyance, and during the resulting argument, Tom vowed to run away to sea. 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.