Salute to Adventure
By Wendy Dunlop*
As we approach the 90th anniversary of the Armistice that ended ‘the Great War’ on 11 November 1918, Navy Today continues its focus on the naval aspects of New Zealand’s involvement in WWI. This month, we celebrate Akaroa Museum’s new exhibition “Salute to Adventure,” which opened on 8 August and commemorates the extraordinary life of Akaroa-born LTCDR Frank Worsley RNR. His exploits included a naval career spanning more than forty years, three polar expeditions and service in both world wars. Central to his career was his reputation for legendary seamanship after one of the world’s most remarkable tales of survival.
As Skipper of ENDURANCE for Shackleton’s 1914 Imperial Antarctic Expedition, Worsley committed himself to a “hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.” No words could have been more prophetic!
When ENDURANCE sank, crushed by the ice and stranding 28 men on an ice floe, their journey back to civilisation almost defies belief. Putting into icy seas in the surviving lifeboats they miraculously made their way to the isolated Elephant Island.
Leaving 22 men sheltering under two of the boats, Shackleton, Worsley and four others sailed the patched-up JAMES CAIRD 800nm across the Southern Ocean to South Georgia. Expedition members had supreme faith in the Skipper’s seamanship, but the CAIRD pitched “like a flea” and nearly foundered with encrusted ice. Iron in the pump affected the compass and cloud so obscured the sky that in the 15 day voyage, Worsley only managed four navigational fixes. They then crossed the island’s uncharted mountains and glaciers on foot to the whaling station in Stromness Bay, leading to the eventual rescue of all expedition members.
In admiration, the Norwegian whalers of Stromness retrieved the JAMES CAIRD. This 22 foot wooden saviour remains on permanent display today at Dulwich College in England, Shackleton’s old school.
Worsley’s remarkable navigational accuracy - after 800nm, he was only out by 1nm in latitude and 20 in longitude – was, in part, the culmination of 27 years experience at sea. At 15 Frank Worsley entered the employment of the NZ Shipping Co as a “brass bounder” apprentice, sailing to London in the 1057 ton WAIROA. In “First Voyage in a Square Rigged Ship” Worsley describes climbing the dizzy heights of masts to set sails, the routine of four hourly watches, seasickness, homesickness, wild conditions rounding Cape Horn and the unforgettable sight of his first iceberg. He returned to NZ in the RAKAIA, learning more advanced navigation en route. “We became experts with logarithms, Mercator’s sailing, day’s work and meridian altitude. Mr Watson reinforced the theory by handing the apprentices the log book and the noon altitude of the sun with orders to produce the noon latitude and ship’s position by dead reckoning.”
Worsley remained with the NZ Shipping Company, progressing steadily through the ranks to third officer by December 1895. He then transferred to the NZ Government Steamer Service as second mate in the TUTANEKEI, which serviced the Pacific Islands, including Samoa, then jointly ruled by England, America and Germany. In a high spirited incident that could have wrecked his career and embarrassed diplomatic relations with Germany had he been caught, Worsley instigated the theft of the Imperial flag from the German Consulate at Apia in 1899.
After several Pacific voyages in the HINEMOA, Worsley successfully sat his foreign-going master’s certificate in June 1900. Soon after he took command of the COUNTESS OF RANFURLY, built for trading in the Pacific on behalf of the NZ Government. “I was Captain of this 200 ton three masted topsail schooner… the smartest sailing craft in the South Seas.” Over the next five years Worsley became adept at manoeuvring his ship among coral reefs, landing at tiny atolls in small boats and recording his impressions of island life “Rarotonga is the finest island… (with) a pleasing custom when we landed of garlanding us with beautiful scented flowers and long strings of lovely little sea shells.”
During this period he also joined the Royal Naval Reserve at the rank of Sub-Lieutenant [see sidebar]. But while trading was the life-blood of the islands, the COUNTESS OF RANFURLY made little profit and was eventually purchased by the Cook Islands and Niue. For Worsley, it was time for new horizons. He left for England in 1906, resuming his career on merchant vessels in the North Atlantic and undergoing further training in the Royal Naval Reserve, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander by 1914.
Shackleton’s ambitious Antarctic expedition (the Admiralty in London expected a short war so was happy for the expedition to proceed) required ENDURANCE to enter the Weddell Sea where Shackleton would lead a six man party across Antarctica by dog sled. Simultaneously the AUROROA party would sail from Lyttelton to the Ross Sea and lay food depots for Shackleton to complete the journey. Of course the ice in the Weddell Sea defeated the expedition, and it became an epic of survival, with Worsley playing a key part.
After the triumphant rescue at South Georgia, Shackleton heard that the Ross Sea party had also become stranded. He traveled to New Zealand with Worsley to assist in the rescue, accompanying AUROROA and the survivors back to Wellington in February 1917. They had successfully laid the food depots, but three men perished in the process.
Returning to Britain in April 1917 and rejoining the RNR, Worsley was given command of a “mystery” ship, PQ 61, designed to entice and trap German submarines. On 26 September 1917, PQ 61 sank UC-33. Employing the “Worsley thrills” technique he had devised to ram ice floes and his accuracy with newly-developed depth charges, “Depth Charge Bill” sank the U-boat and earned a DSO - and some financial reward! Lavishly celebrating his “submarine tally” in advance, the reimbursement left him out of pocket – he remarked that “bagging submarines was an expensive amusement! (The White Ensign flown by PQ-61 is now displayed at the Akaroa Museum.)
The next year he was on loan to the War Office to work alongside Shackleton, coordinating transport and equipment for British troops in Arctic Russia. For Worsley this was not just an administrative job; he commanded various ships and, after raids with General Grogan, received a Bar to his DSO. When the rivers iced up and prevented action on the water, Worsley would attach himself to any active unit and “ride as a trooper with the Cossacks, crawl through the forest with the Royal Scots and Americans to drive the Bolos [Bolsheviks] back, or go up the road with the Canadian artillery surveying and taking angles for indirect fire!”
After the war, Worsley invested in a schooner to trade in the Baltic, but like many of his private enterprises, monetary success eluded him. He signed up in 1921 for another of Shackleton’s expeditions, to circumnavigate the Antarctic. Joined by old friends Macklin, Wild, McIllroy, Hussey, Kerr and Green, Worsley accepted command of the 111 ft QUEST, but was never complimentary about the vessel and wrote verses about her failings:
“There was a ship her name was Quest
She rolled up east she rolled down west,
She was a ruddy strumpet…..”
Nevertheless they reached the familiar peaks of South Georgia on 4 January 1922, recognizing landmarks “like excitable kids.” But Worsley and the other loyal “argonauts” never actually set foot on the Antarctic continent, for Shackleton died next day of a heart attack. Dispiritedly, the expedition completed the geological and zoological surveys, magnetic compass variations and soundings, but abandoned the circumnavigation. After erecting a stone cairn to Shackleton at South Georgia, they took the QUEST back to England.
Worsley’s third polar venture was as joint leader of the British Arctic Expedition in 1925. His colleague, Algarsson, planned the first flight to the North Pole in an aircraft transported to Spitsburgen. In the General Strike the aircraft was never built, but the expedition “pushed the frontiers of knowledge, sailing where no ship had ever sailed” Always contemptuous of steam, when the propeller broke, Worsley delighted in threading the vessel through pack ice under sail and “chasing jelly fish with a 100 ton brigantine.”
For the next decade, accompanied by his second wife, Worsley delivered private yachts all over the world and hunted for treasure in the Cocos Islands with the newly invented metal detector. There is no evidence that he found anything! When WWII broke out he returned to sea service as Master of the wreck removal ship DALRIADA. An application for more active duty was declined when he misrepresented his age by deducting 10 years! Instead he reluctantly accepted an instructor’s post at Greenwich Naval College until his death in 1943. Even in wartime, he was given a formal naval memorial service and his ashes were scattered near the Nore lightship, to the winds and seas he knew so well.
A Naval Career - LTCDR Frank Worsley RNR
Worsley was born in Akaroa and attended school in Christchurch.
1902: Appointed as SLT RNR
1905: Appointed as Master of the former HMS SPARROW to sail the ship to NZ for assessment and purchase as government training ship
1906: Served in HMS PSYCHE as LT RNR
1906-1907: Served one year in HMS SWIFTSURE
1911: Joined HMS NEW ZEALAND for one month
May 1914: Promoted LTCDR, RNR
WWI
1917: HMS PEMBROKE for training, then command of HMS PQ61; 26 Sept sank
UC-33 by ramming, awarded DSO
Oct 1918: Appointed to North Russian expeditionary force; during those operations in 1919, commanded HMS CRICKET (river gungoat); appointed to HMS FOX; command of HMS M24 (monitor).
Oct 1919: Awarded Bar to DSO for taking charge of an Army raid inland
1920: Appointed OBE
WWII
Merchant master of DALRINDA on Admiralty salvage work, East Coast England
April 1942: Appointed to HMS KING ALFRED as lecturer
June 1942: On the staff of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich
Died 1 Feb 1943, 3 weeks short of his 71st birthday, and given a formal naval funeral.
Saluting the Adventurer
Frank Worsley, a boy from Akaroa, had roamed the world, challenged the wildest places on earth and seen more action and daring than most of us can dream. Fittingly, the new exhibition “Salute to Adventure” brings the story back to where it all began.
The exhibition by Museum Designer Chris Currie, provides a concise chronology, presented on a series of panels incorporating photographs, text and audio visual material. Also on display are Worsley’s medals, ship’s whistle, the White Ensign from PQ 61, a sextant and a bound volume of letters, family history and career-related documents.
“Salute to Adventure” records each stage of Worsley’s life, but the extraordinary boat journey is portrayed with an audio visual compilation of Hurley’s expedition photographs, sound effects of southern gales and recent images of South Georgia.
*Wendy Dunlop is a freelance writer based in Christchurch, who, for over a decade has been researching and writing about Frank Worsley. Her work has been published in NZ Geographic, Heritage Magazine, Weekend, Dish, Latitude, various inflight magazines and the Christchurch Press, Star, ODT and NZ Herald.