Robert Falcon Scott has fascinated people as a man and as a doomed hero for nearly 100 years, since he and his men died on their return trip from the South Pole (where they found themselves preceded by Norwegian Roald Amundsen, and so didn’t even have the satisfaction of having been first to the pole). This article says that another man’s error cost those men their lives. Of course, it might equally be said that their losing their lives in that particular way gained them immortality.
Robert Falcon Scott
Scott needed horse snowshoes in Antarctic
Antarctic hero Scott “died because of horse snow shoes blunder”, according to the magazine British Horse.
It says Captain Robert Scott and his team would not have died on their return journey from the South Pole in 1912 if they had used horse snowshoes available to them.
Captain Scott left the snow shoes, which research indicates would have made his expedition’s progress far faster, at base camp on the advice of his horse expert Captain Lawrence Oates.
Captain Oates famously declared “I am just going outside and could be some time”, when bravely sacrificing his life in the hope his companions might live.
But he considered snow shoes an “unmitigated nuisance”, according to the article, by American equestrian journalist Tom Moates and based on the findings of the Long Riders’ Guild Academic Foundation (LRGAF).
In the article, Moates concludes: “Not employing the horse snow shoes in their possession was the one huge and deadly mistake of Scott’s mission.
“As leader, Scott has to take ultimate responsibility, but it would seem he was poorly advised and undermined by Oates in this vital matter.”
The Foundation, part of the US Long Riders’ Guild, cites evidence in the article that snow shoes had been used for at least 700 years before Scott’s expedition.
Scott himself knew they could double the speed of the horses. He had snow shoes available for the horses on the expedition but, on Oates’ advice, left all but one pair behind.
“When Scott realised the terrible blunder, he sent two men back to get them - but it proved too late because the ice had gone out,” according to the article