Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte
Joseph Russell Stenhouse, the scion of a Scottish ship building family, was born in Dumbarton in November 1887, and first went to sea in 1903 - his father and grandfather were well-known for the clippers they built under the name Birrell, Stenhouse & Company, and young Joseph became one of the last men to gain his Master’s Certificate in a square-rigger. In fact, as one obituarist put it, ‘Sailing ships were in his blood.’
Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition 1914-16
In August 1914, Stenhouse joined Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition, initially as Chief Officer of the Aurora, under Lieutenant A. L.A. Mackintosh, R.N.R., but when the ship reached a suitable landing place near Hut Point in January 1915, Mackintosh went ashore with his Ross Sea party and Stenhouse took overall command.
Shackleton had ordered Stenhouse to winter the Aurora north of Glacier Tongue, but since the ice was in a constant state of movement and no shelter could be found from the tearing winds and blizzards, it was not until March 1915 that a suitable anchorage could be found. By that stage large quantities of coal had been used up in fighting against the ice packs and the chosen anchorage could only be described by the Second Officer ‘as good a place as there is at present offering’. Despite every effort to secure stable moorings it was not uncommon for the anchors and supporting wire hawsers to be wrenched up by drifting ice and on 6 May 1915, during a severe southerly gale, the Aurora was finally cast adrift. The Second Officer records the event thus:
‘At 9.35 p.m. or thereabouts I had just been turned in when the after moorings began to strain and the decks to groan and then I knew the ice had again started to go out of North Bay C. Evans. This was a very dangerous thing as the ice was so thick. I did not turn out immediately but it got so bad that Hooke woke me to come out and I was thinking it was about time I was making a move. As the strain was so great that something had to go either the decks with the bits or the wires. I soon found out which it was as the two wires parted with reports like the report of guns and then I heard several other snaps and by the time I was dressed fit to go on deck I could see we had carried away all our moorings and we were going out into the Sound with our bow anchors down. We called all hands and put tackles upon our cables to relieve our windlass of the strain when we dragged our anchors. The Engine Room were set to work to get everything ready for steam. I was let go after midnight by the Chief Officer but there was mighty little sleep to be had as the ship got out from under the shelter of the land. The wind was blowing fiercely and it was so thick that one could only see a few yards from the ship and when the floe we were stuck fast in began to break up and we got amongst the loose pack, the pounding this ship got would have sent almost any steel ship to the bottom but this ship stood it wonderfully well. So ended the most eventful night of the trip up to the present.’
The Aurora now had to take her chance with the pack ice and whilst Mackintosh and the shore party were on the minds of Stenhouse and his crew, for they were aware the former were in need of supplies, there was nothing they could do to get south again since the Aurora had been forced into a northward course (it was at this time that Shackleton and the Endurance were suffering the same fate on the opposite side of the Antarctic continent).
By July the Aurora began to suffer from the pressure of the ice and her rudder was smashed and carried away - in fact conditions became so bad that preparations were made for her to be abandoned. However, Stenhouse was able to reverse this decision when the climate showed signs of improvement and a replacement rudder had been constructed.
On 6 August 1915 Mount Sabine and Cape Adare came into view and by 22 September Sturge Island was sighted and Oates Land was seen to the south. The main problems aboard the ship at this stage were a shortage of food and clothing, but by February 1916 the ice was showing signs of breaking up and Stenhouse realised they stood a fighting chance of getting back to New Zealand. The melting pack ice left the Aurora at the mercy of some substantial ice floes and if these were combined with a heavy swell, then the ship’s position became somewhat precarious. The entry in the ship’s log, 29 February 1916, states:
‘The battering and ramming of the floes increased in the early hours until it seemed as if some sharp floe or jagged underfoot must go through the ship’s hull. At 6 a.m. we converted a large coil-spring into a fender and slipped it under the port quarter, where a pressured flow with a twenty to thirty feet underfoot was threatening to knock the propeller and stern-post off altogether. At 9 a.m., after pumping ship, the engineer reported a leak in the way of the propeller-shaft aft near the stern-post on the port side. The carpenter cut part of the lining and filled the space between the timbers with Stockholm tar, cement and oakum. He could not get at the actual leak, but his makeshift made a little difference. I am anxious about the propeller. This pack is a dangerous place for a ship now.’
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