b. 10/08/1879 Nettleton, Lincoln. d. 10/03/1918 at sea off coast of Malta.
DATE OF AM ACTION: 1914-1917 Antarctica.
Harry E Wild AM
Ernest Wild was one of eight brothers, the family coming from Skelton, North Yorkshire, close to Marton, birthplace of Captain James Cook. The family claimed relationship to Captain Cook, Mrs Wild having been born Mary Cook, but no positive connection has been established. Their father was Benjamin Wild, a local schoolteacher. Ernest’s oldest brother Frank also became a polar explorer, and was awarded the CBE and Polar Medal with Four Bars.
Ernest followed Frank into the Navy in 1894 and remained in service for 20 years before joining the Ross Sea party. Wild sailed to Antarctica on SY Aurora in December 1914, under the command of Captain Aeneas Mackintosh. Among the expedition’s members was Ernest Joyce, the only member of the party with significant experience of Antarctic conditions. The party’s mission was to lay depots on the Great Ice Barrier, to support a group led by Shackleton which would be crossing the continent from the Weddell Sea. The Ross Sea party’s base was established at Cape Evans in McMurdo Sound, and the expedition ship Aurora was anchored there.
Wild maintained a diary during his stay and at times he felt predisposed to write, penning paragraph after paragraph describing what had gone on over the previous few days, or weeks. At other times he would hardly make a diary entry for a month, apart from a very brief note with no more than a sentence or two to mention one feature of his day. He seemed to have the ability to look at the lighter side of life, even after struggling all day hauling a heavy sledge, or lying in the tent eking out diminishing food rations, or when he had severe frost-bite in his toes, and even when he was in a life-threatening situation. Wild was very direct in what he wrote and was not afraid to say what he thought, particularly in regard to Mackintosh.
After participating in the first season’s hasty depot-laying journey in January–March 1915, Wild suffered severe frostbite resulting in the amputation of part of a toe and the top of an ear. On 7 May 1915 Aurora, still holding most of the shore party’s equipment and stores, was blown out to sea during a gale and was unable to return. Subsequently, Wild and Ernest Joyce showed considerable resourcefulness in fabricating clothes and equipment from materials left over from Scott’s Terra Nova expedition (which had used this base 1910–13). On the 1915–16 depot-laying journey two three-man teams made the long march from “Rocky Mountain depot” at 80°S to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. Wild was initially teamed with Mackintosh and Arnold Spencer-Smith, the party’s Chaplain and photographer. Ernest Joyce, Richard W Richards and Victor Hayward formed the other team. As the two parties moved south, conditions worsened and the men’s physical condition weakened. Eventually the two groups combined into a single unit. Close to the glacier Spencer-Smith collapsed, and thereafter had to be carried on the sledge. After the last depot had been laid Mackintosh became lame and unable to pull, and the entire team, including Wild, developed scurvy.
The stricken party, having fulfilled all its depot-laying duties, struggled back towards its base in awful weather, Wild nursing Spencer-Smith who had become helpless. He died before the base was reached. The remaining five reached the safety of Hut Point and slowly recovered their strength. On 8 May 1916 Mackintosh and Hayward risked walking on the sea ice in an attempt to reach Cape Evans, but disappeared during a blizzard and were never seen again. Joyce, Richards and Wild had walked up to the top of a small hill to watch the two men head north, and Wild’s final diary comment on their departure was: “If the other two get lost, I shall be sorry we humped them back here over the barrier. However, let’s hope they get there alright.” Wild and the other survivors were rescued in January 1917.
In 1917 Wild returned to naval duty on HMS Pembroke, later transferring to HMS Biarritz. He died on 10 March 1918 in the Royal Naval Hospital, Malta, after contracting typhoid. He is buried in the Commonwealth War Grave Commission’s plot in the Kalkara Naval Cemetery (also known as the Capuccini Naval Cemetery). In 1923 he was posthumously awarded the Albert Medal for his efforts to save the lives of Mackintosh and Spencer-Smith. An unassuming man, he published no diaries or records of his Antarctic experiences. Alexander Stevens, who had been chief scientist on the Ross Sea party, paid him this tribute: “There are some things that have great value but no glitter. Consistent…long-suffering, patient, industrious, good-humoured, unswervingly loyal, he made an enormous contribution to our well-being”.
AM CITATION:
The Expedition had for its object the crossing of the Antarctic Continent from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea, via the South Pole, a distance of about seventeen hundred miles. Sufficient supplies for the journey could not be carried, and it was therefore necessary to establish a chain of depots on the Ross Sea side as far southwards as possible. With this end in view the ship ” Aurora ” was sent to McMurdo Sound at the southern extremity of the Ross Sea and, as it was intended that the vessel should winter there, a portion only of the stores and equipment was disembarked. McMurdo Sound was reached in January, 1915, but during a blizzard in May, the ” Aurora ” was blown out to sea and was unable to return, and the nine members of the Expedition who- were on shore were left stranded. They recognised that failure to establish the depots would undoubtedly result in the loss of the main body and resolved, in spite of their grave shortage of equipment to carry out the allotted programme. For this purpose a party under the command of Sub-Lieutenant A. L. Mackintosh, R.N.R., and consisting of the Reverend A. P. Spencer-Smith, Messrs. Joyce, Richards, Hayward and Wild and three other members who assisted for a part of the outward journey left Hut Point, Ross Island, on October 9th, They took with them two sledges and four dogs, and 162 days elapsed before the surviving members of the party were back at Hut Point, the total distance covered being approximately 950 miles. Mr. Spencer-Smith had to be dragged on a sledge for 42 days, mainly by hand labour, the distance covered being over 350 miles. When more than 100 miles remained to be covered the collapse of Lieutenant Mackintosh imposed an additional burden on the active members of the party who were all suffering from scurvy and snow blindness and were so enfeebled by their labours that at times they were unable to cover more than 2 or 3 miles in 15 hours. Mr. Spencer-Smith died when only 19 miles remained to be covered, but Lieutenant Mackintosh was brought in safely to the base.
BURIAL LOCATION: KALKARA NAVAL CEMETERY, KALKARA, MALTA.
PROTESTANT SECTION, GRAVE 365.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
