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About the Publisher (#ueda54507-edb1-5556-ad09-10dabe3d032e)
FOREWORD
Having spent my life in so many dangerous and at times unforgiving terrains, I have learnt that to come out the other side alive you have to find the spirit to keep going, whatever the cost. Each of the stories in this book tells of that same spirit in those who endured. As individuals we cannot conquer a mountain or a storm, but we can learn to harness nature’s elements, and our own limitations, to see almost any ordeal through.
Appropriate preparation and experience are essential for any expedition, but they are no guarantee of safety. Even the wariest of adventurers can fall foul to difficult conditions, faulty equipment or lapses in concentration. Only by keeping calm and finding confidence in their own abilities will they stand a chance of passing through the constant threats thrown up by nature. Within this book are stories of those who ventured out with an awareness and appreciation of the danger ahead, but who faltered, rallied and survived: Joe Simpson’s horrific fall on Siula Grande in 1985; Aron Ralston, trapped by rocks and forced to amputate his arm; Ernest Shackleton’s epic South Georgia expedition and his determination to return his stranded men alive.
Alongside these, are the stories of great difficulty and suffering, but endured by those who survived without that experience and equipment. These are the horror stories that defy the statistics. Tales of plane crashes, kidnappings and prison escapes, the stories of ‘everyday’ people unprepared for the hardest conditions: eleven-year-old Norman Ollestad, the sole survivor of a light-aircraft crash, who descended over 8,000 ft engulfed in a blizzard; Cambodian journalist Dith Pran’s four years of starvation and torture under the Khmer Rouge, and his desperate escape when the regime was overthrown; the three young Australian girls who walked for 1,600 km through the desert to find salvation.
There are so many compelling character traits to admire in all the survivors featured in this book, even in the ‘bad-guys’ – the bank robbers and prisoners who escaped or the hijacker who vanished into legend. These people, too, show the enduring spirit for survival, adventure and for freedom. They were motivated to escape whatever it was that restrained them. It is the same motivation felt by many adventurers to avoid the nine-to-five, the desk job and the pension scheme. Fear of injury and death must be ever-present during a daring escape, just as on a dangerous climb, but the fear of the mundane, of accepting the humdrum, can be far more terrifying. And, of course, there is a price to pay for high adventure – in unending sweat, fear, discomfort and pain.
But no one ever said it would be easy.
BEAR GRYLLS
image/svg+xml Double tap on map and activate links to navigate to details (not all devices support this functionality) or select from links below. 14 Survival14 Fridtjof Nansen 88 Prison152 Cornelius Rost 114 War138 Jan Baalsrud 174 Shipwrecks142 The Great Escape 230 Hostages234 Natascha Kampusch 208 Soviet submarine K-1928 Gary Powers 30 Apollo 13230 Terry Anderson 240 82 Ruben van Assouw 218 Steven Callahan118 William Brydon 200 Robert Tapscott Roy Widdicombe246 Roy Hallums 188 Whale ship Essex236 Naheeda Bi 174 Commodore George Anson64 Wilco van Rooijen 124 Leo Bretholtz24 Climbing Haramosh 122 Gunther Pl146 Heinrich Harrer 108 Antonio Ferrara130 Freddy Spencer Chapman 250 Jasper Schuringa252 Freighter Maersk Alabama 222 Richard Charrington70 Bahia Bakari 212 Maurice Maralyn Bailey164 Dith Pran 202 Poon Lim204 USS Indianapolis 192 Ernest Shackleton158 Captain Anthony Farrar-Hockley 182 Captain James Riley20 Tokyo earthquake 168 Major Phil Ashby178 Mutiny on the Bounty 134 Operation Frankton198 William Shotton 114 196 Cargo steamer Trevessa 102 Dan Cooper98 Escape from Alcatraz 94 Henri 90 Hugo Grotius 88 Mary, Queen of Scots84 Darlene Etienne 76 Chilean miners rescue72 Flight 1549 Hudson crash 60 Aron Ralston56 9/11 terrorist attacks 50 Joe Simpson46 Mt St. Helens eruption 40 Norman Ollestad22 Aboriginal relocation 32 Juliane K18 Douglas Mawson 34 Flight 571 Andes crash
Into the Frozen North
Nansen prepares to leave his shipFramand begin his sledge journey to the North Pole on 14 March 1895.
Sailing to the North Pole
Fridtjof Nansen was an explorer with a very bold plan. It was 1890 and no man had yet made it to the North Pole. Nansen proposed a mission to do just that, by sailing a boat into the pack ice and using its natural drift to journey north.
There was a scientific basis for this theory. In June 1881 the US Arctic exploration vessel Jeannette was crushed and sunk off the Siberian coast. Wreckage from this ship was later found on Greenland.
Henrik Mohn, a distinguished Norwegian meteorologist, predicted the existence of an ocean current that flowed east to west across the polar sea, possibly over the pole itself. If a ship could be built strong enough it could, in theory, enter the ice by Siberia and simply drift to Greenland via the pole.
Nansen kept this idea in the back of his mind for the next few years as he cut his adventuring teeth. He made a triumphant expedition to Greenland then began to develop a serious plan for a polar venture in earnest.
In February 1890 he presented his plan to the Norwegian Geographical Society. He needed a small, manoeuverable and immensely strong ship. It must be able to carry fuel and provisions for twelve men for five years. He would sail this ship through the North East Passage to where the Jeannette sank and then enter the ice. The vessel would then catch the ice’s natural drift west towards the pole and beyond, eventually coming out into the sea between Greenland and Spitsbergen.
‘an illogical scheme of self-destruction’
Many other experienced explorers laughed at him, including Adolphus Greely, Sir Allen Young and Sir Joseph Hooker.
But Nansen was driven, passionate and eloquent. He persuaded the Norwegian parliament to give him a grant. Several private investors also chipped in and the remaining balance came from a public appeal. Crazy idea or not, he was going to do it.
The mission
Nansen asked Norway’s top shipbuilder, Colin Archer, to create the unique vessel that would take him to the pole. Archer rose to the challenge, building a squat, rounded ship that the ice could not grip. He used South American greenheart, the hardest timber available. The hull was 60–70 cm (24–28 inches) thick, increasing to 1.25 metres (48 inches) at the bow. The ship was launched by Nansen’s wife Eva at Archer’s yard at Larvik, on 6 October 1892, and was named Fram (‘Forward’ in English).
Thousands of men applied to join the expedition, but only twelve could go. Competition for places was so intense that the dog-driving expert Hjalmar Johansen had to sign on as ship’s stoker. Nansen appointed Otto Sverdrup from his Greenland expedition as captain of Fram and his second-in-command.
Fram left Christiania on 24 June 1893, cheered on by thousands of well-wishers, and headed north round the coast of Norway. After a final stop in Vardø, the expedition set out through the North East Passage along the northern coast of Siberia.
These waters were largely uncharted and their progress through the treacherous fog and ice floes was slow. They also spent days hindered by ‘dead water’ where a layer of fresh water lying on top of heavier salt water creates enough friction to stop a boat.
Fridtjof Nansen (foreground) and Hjalmar Johansen.
‘At last the marvel has come to pass—land, land, and after we had almost given up our belief in it!’
Eventually, they passed Cape Chelyuskin the most northerly point of the Eurasian continental mass. Then, on 20 September, Fram reached the area where the Jeannette had been crushed. Nansen followed the pack ice northwards to 78°49’N, 132°53’E, before cutting the engines and raising the rudder.
It would be two and a half years before they were back on the open sea.
Drifting north
To Nansen’s frustration, the ship zigzagged for the first few weeks, rather than moving towards the pole. On 19 November, Fram was actually further south than where she had entered the ice. It was only in January 1894, that she started to progress more steadily north. On 22 March they passed 80° of latitude. But the drift was slow: just 1.6 km (1 mile) a day. At this rate it would take them five years to get to the pole.
Nansen thought of a new plan – to leave the ship at latitude 83° with Hjalmar Johansen and drive a dog sledge to the pole. They would then make for the recently-discovered Franz Josef Land before crossing to Spitsbergen and picking up a ship home. The Fram would meanwhile continue its drift until it popped out of the ice in the North Atlantic.
Preparing the clothing and equipment for this plan took up the whole of the 1894–5 winter. The crew built kayaks, which the polar pair would need when they reached open water on the return journey. Nansen also had to master dog-driving, which he practised on the ice.
The sprint for the pole
On 14 March 1895, with the ship’s position at 84°4’N, above Greely’s previous Farthest North record of 83°24’, Nansen and Johansen set out. The men had 356 nautical miles (660 km; 410 miles) of ice between them and the top of the world, and fifty days’ worth of provisions. That meant a daily trek of seven nautical miles (13 km; 8 miles).
At first they set a good pace, averaging nine nautical miles a day, (17 km; 10 miles). But the ice became rougher and their progress slowed. They were also marching against the same drift that had previously carried their ship, in effect pushing them two steps back for every three they took forward.
It was soon clear that they didn’t have enough food to make it to the pole and on to Franz Josef Land. Nansen’s heart must have been breaking when, on 7 April, he saw that the way ahead was nothing but ‘a veritable chaos of ice blocks stretching as far as the horizon’. That was the final straw. The men turned south. They were at 86°13.6’N, almost three degrees further north than any man had previously ventured.
Retreat
For a week they moved smoothly south, but then on 13 April both of their watches stopped. This made it impossible for them to calculate their longitude and find their way accurately to Franz Josef Land.
Two weeks later they crossed the tracks of an Arctic fox, the first trace of a living creature other than their dogs that they had seen since leaving the Fram. Within the next few weeks they also came upon bear tracks, and started to see seals, gulls and whales. But they could not catch any and were running low on food. They had no choice but to start shooting their dogs, starting with the weakest. They then fed this animal to the others, allowing them to eke out their rations a little further.
At the end of May, Nansen calculated that they were only 50 nautical miles (93 km; 58 miles) from Cape Fligely, the northernmost known point of Franz Josef Land. But their luck turned again: the weather was getting warmer and the ice was breaking up.
On 22 June they camped on a stable ice floe, resting there for a month. The day after leaving this camp they spotted land, far in the distance. Whether this was Franz Josef Land or a new discovery they could not be sure, but it was their only hope. On 6 August they ran out of ice – they would have to trust their lives to the homemade kayaks. They shot the last of their dogs, lashed their two kayaks together and sailed for land.
Nansen soon identified Cape Felder, which lay on the western edge of Franz Josef Land. But time was against them, and towards the end of August the weather grew colder again. They would have to spend another winter in the frozen north. They found a sheltered cove where they built a hut from stones and moss. It would be their home for the next eight months. It was 3 m (10 ft) long and 2 m (6 ft) wide, and had a stone bench on each side with bearskins and woollen sleeping bags. A chimney of bear hide led from the hearth to the roof, which was made with walrus hide. Heat and light was provided by oil lamps, and the partially submerged door made of skins. A primitive dwelling, but sufficiently warm and comfortable.
Their food supplies were long gone, but they still had ammunition and now there was plenty of bear, walrus and seal around. Although they would not go hungry, the feeling of settling in to a long arctic winter in their tiny refuge must have been disheartening in the extreme. Christmas and New Year came and went, and the severe weather continued through the early months of 1896. Finally, on 19 May, they restarted their journey south.
‘[Nansen made] almost as great an advance as has been accomplished by all other voyages in the nineteenthcentury put together.’
Rescue and return
In mid June their kayaks were attacked by a walrus. After scaring the beast off, Nansen and Johansen stopped to make repairs. Cursing their luck, Nansen was astonished to hear a dog barking and then, human voices. He rounded the headland and to his amazement saw a man approaching.
It was Frederick Jackson, the British explorer who was leading an expedition to Franz Josef Land. Jackson was equally dumbfounded and it was some moments before he asked: ‘You are Nansen, aren’t you?’ and heard the reply ‘Yes, I am Nansen.’
Jackson took the Norwegians to his camp at nearby Cape Flora on Northbrook Island. As they recuperated from their ordeal, Nansen came to thank the feisty walrus; had it not been for that beast they might never have encountered Jackson.
The meeting between Fridtjof Nansen (right) and Frederick Jackson at Cape Flora, Franz Josef Land, 17 June 1896.
Nansen and Johansen boarded Jackson’s supply ship Windward on 7 August and set sail for Vardø which they reached a week later. To their surprise they were greeted by Hans Mohn, the polar drift theorist, who just happened to be in the town. Telegrams were dispatched to tell the world about Nansen’s safe return.
Nansen and Johansen caught a mail steamer south to reach Hammerfest on 18 August. There they learned that the Fram had emerged from the ice north and west of Spitsbergen, as Nansen had predicted. The men immediately sailed for Tromsø, where they joined their old shipmates.
On 9 September 1896, Fram sailed into the harbour at Christiania. The quays were thronged with the largest crowds the city had ever seen. Nansen was reunited with his family more than three years after setting out and they spent the next few days as special guests of King Oscar. He may not have reached the North Pole, but Nansen’s epic tale of survival ensured his lifelong celebrity.
Another Antarctic Winter
Australian geologist and Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson (1882–1958).
Way down south
The average wind speed at Cape Denison was 80 km/h (50 mph). It regularly gusted at 320 km/h (200 mph). But Douglas Mawson and his colleagues would have to get used to it. For the next two years this was going to be their home.
Mawson was born in Yorkshire in 1882 but grew up in Australia. A geologist by education, he had been bitten early by the exploring bug. He was the principal geologist on an expedition to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), and he wrote one of the first major geological studies on the area. He was just 21 at the time.
The early twentieth century was the age of the great Antarctic explorers. In 1910 Mawson had turned down an invitation from Robert Falcon Scott to join his ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition.
Instead, Mawson organized his own adventure, the Australian Antarctic Expedition. This would carry out geographical exploration and scientific studies of King George V Land and Adelie Land, the part of the Antarctic continent directly south of Australia. At the time this region was almost entirely unexplored. Mawson also wanted to include a visit to the South Magnetic Pole.
The Australian Antarctic Expedition
Mawson and his team departed from Hobart on 2 December 1911, on board the SY Aurora. They landed at the wind-buffeted Cape Denison on Commonwealth Bay on 8 January 1912, where they built the hut that would serve as their Main Base for the expedition. They also established a Western camp on the ice shelf in Queen Mary Land.
Mawson had initially wanted to explore the area by air and had brought the first aircraft to Antarctica, a Vickers monoplane. But it suffered damage and the engine struggled in the cold. All their exploring would have to be done on foot, with dogs and sledges. However, by the time they had fully established their camp, the weather was worsening and it was soon too severe to travel in. The men stayed in the hut to see out the long, dark months of an Antarctic winter.
Sledging to disaster
By November 1912, the nearly constant blizzards had eased and the exploration program could begin. Mawson divided the men into seven parties: five would operate from the Main Base and two from the Western camp.
Mawson himself would lead a three-man sledging team along with Xavier Mertz and Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis. They set out east on 10 November 1912, to survey King George V Land. For five weeks all went smoothly. They mapped the coastline and collected many fine geological samples. Then, as they were crossing what was to become the Ninnis Glacier, disaster struck.
Mawson was driving the sledge, which spread his weight evenly over the ice, and Mertz was skiing. But Ninnis was on foot and his weight breached the surface. He plunged into a snow-covered crevasse, taking the tent, most of their rations, and the six best dogs with him. Mertz and Mawson could see one dead and one injured dog on a ledge 50 m (160 ft) down the massive crevasse, but Ninnis was gone.
A long way from home
Mawson and Mertz said a brief service for their colleague and then turned back. They had a primus stove and fuel but only one week’s provisions and no food for the dogs. They were separated from home by 480 km (300 miles) of the most brutal terrain on earth.
Their first goal was to get to a spare tent cover that they had stashed behind them on their journey. To reach this they sledged continuously for twenty-seven hours. They rigged up a frame for this outer shell of canvas from skis and a theodolite.
Douglas Mawson peering over the edge of the crevasse into which his comrade Lt. Ninnis has fallen along with his sledge, dogs and supplies.
Mawson’s teams had explored large areas of the Antarctic coast and discovered much about its geology, biology and meteorology. They had also accurately determined the location of the South Magnetic Pole.
The trek back was slow going and they soon ran out of food. They had no choice but to kill their huskies one by one and eat them. There was hardly any meat on the animals, and even though they mixed it with a little of their tinned food, the men were almost constantly hungry. The bones, guts and sinew that they could not digest they gave to the remaining dogs.
Poisoned
Mawson and Mertz were so desperately hungry that they ate the huskies’ livers. Unfortunately, these contain a toxic concentration of Vitamin A. Although Vitamin A was only identified in 1917, Inuit peoples had long known about the poisonous nature of these organs. The livers of polar bears, seals and walrus are similarly dangerous.
The two men got very ill very quickly on their journey back. They were racked with sickness, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, dizziness and became irrational. Their skin turned yellow and began to peel from their muscles. Their hair and nails fell out.
Mertz ate more liver than Mawson because he found the dog’s tough muscles too hard to eat and he suffered the worst. As well as the physical deterioration, he became gripped with madness. He would lie curled up in his sleeping bag refusing to move, or would rage violently. At one point Mawson had to sit on Mertz’s chest and seize his arms to stop him wrecking their tent. He even bit off the tip of his own frostbitten little finger. After several major seizures, Mertz finally fell into a coma and died on 8 January 1913.
Walking home alone
That left Douglas Mawson to trek the last 160 km (100 miles) alone. At one point he tumbled into a deep crevasse. He was only saved from plummeting to certain death by his sledge, which jammed itself into the ice above him. He then hauled himself back up the slender rope that attached him to the sledge.
In 1916, the American Geographical Society awarded Mawson the David Livingstone Centenary Medal. He was later awarded the OBE and was also knighted.
Mawson finally made it back to Cape Denison in February, but further misfortune awaited him. The Aurora had sailed away just a few hours before. Mawson and the six men who had stayed behind to look for him were forced to spend a second winter in the brutal arms of Cape Denison until they were finally rescued in December 1913.
The Day the World Shook
A world turned upside down
The scene could have been taken from a romantic movie: a beautiful ocean liner snug against a wharf, cheering passengers lining her rails, streamers and confetti falling like coloured rain on the hundreds of well-wishers on the dockside.
Seconds later the movie would become a tragedy as one of the most devastating earthquakes in history shattered the scene.
Thousands would die in the initial shocks and the catastrophic fires that followed. But thanks to the cool leadership of the liner’s captain and the selfless actions of her crew and passengers, many thousands more would survive.
Disaster on an unprecedented scale
It was 11.55 a.m. on Saturday, 1 September 1923 and the Empress of Australia was making ready to depart from her berth at Yokohama, Japan.
Then, without warning, the entire dock moved several feet up in the air. Suddenly it plunged back down again, cracking into pieces. Seized by panic, the people screamed and ran, but there was nowhere to go. The dock fell into dust beneath their feet.
More shocks hit, making the land around the bay roll in waves over 2 m (7 ft) high, as if it were the ocean.
‘The 23,000-ton liner was tossed from side to side like a toy boat in a bath.’
The sky was lit a sickly orange from the fires now raging across the city, and a low, near-continuous rumbling sound filled the air as hundreds of buildings collapsed into rubble.
The Empress had been hit by the Great Kantō earthquake. This measured 8.3 on the Richter scale and had its epicentre beneath Ō-shima Island in Sagami Bay, just 80 km (50 miles) from where the ship was moored.
The earthquake devastated Tōkyō, the port city of Yokohama and the surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka. Between 100,000 – 142,000 people perished, either from the initial tremors, subsequent building collapses or the vicious firestorms whipped up by 110 km/h (70 mph) winds from a nearby typhoon, which struck the area soon after the earthquake. Many people died when their feet got stuck in melting tarmac. In one single incident, 38,000 people who had taken refuge in a yard at a clothing depot were incinerated by a fire whirl.
Peril in port
Individuals were facing disaster at every turn. Captain Robinson of the Empress of Australia had the lives of more than a thousand people on his shoulders.
Although the shocks lessened and eventually ceased, Robinson knew his vessel was in a very dangerous position.
What remained of the docks was engulfed in flame and the Empress was still tied to the wharf.
If she stayed tied to the dock, she would burn. And if that happened, there would be nowhere for the people on board to go.
Taking action
