16 January 1912 - 'Birdie' Bowers finds something in the snow

Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his men had been marching for two-and-a-half months. Their motor sledges had broken down almost immediately, and their ponies had floundered in the snow and were shot. The dogs had been sent back more than a month before and the men were hauling the heavy sledges themselves. They were now only days away from the South Pole.

Scott had first tried to reach the Pole ten years earlier, but had turned back because of hunger and illness. In 1909, Ernest Shackleton had come within 100 miles (160 kilometres). It was only a matter of time before the most inaccessible place on Earth was reached, and Scott was determined to claim it for the British Empire.

On his way to Antarctica, Scott had learnt of the rival polar expedition under the leadership of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, but he was optimistic that his team was in the lead, having found no trace of the Norwegian.

At 5pm on 16 January 1912, Lieutenant Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers spotted a dark speck ahead of him in the vast whiteness. It was a flag. The Norwegians had beaten them to the South Pole by more than a month.

‘It is a terrible disappointment,’ Scott wrote in his diary. ‘Many bitter thoughts come… Tomorrow we must march on to the Pole and then hasten home with all the speed we can compass. All the day dreams must go; it will be a wearisome return.’

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