Inspiration

A strong historical bond inspired the team to choose this particular challenge.

The soldiers taking part in this expedition all serve in the British Army as members of the Royal Dragoon Guards. The Royal Dragoon Guards has a long and illustrious history dating back to 1685, but it was the example of one of their former soldiers, Captain Lawrence Oates, who inspired the present serving soldiers to face the hardships of Antarctica and try to reach the Geographic South Pole.

Captain Lawrence Edward Grace ("Titus") Oates  was a member of the historic expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott in 1911-12. In fact, it was Captain Oates who provided perhaps the most famous example of heroism and self-sacrifice that we associate with Scott’s tragic expedition.

For on the morning of 17 March 1912, as Scott’s expedition struggled in the face of appalling conditions and dwindling supplies, Lawrence Oates chose to sacrifice himself in order to give his fellow team members a greater chance of survival.

That morning, Oates walked out of the expedition tent into a blizzard and uttered the famous last words:

“I am just going outside and may be some time.”

Sadly Oates' sacrifice did not save the other three members of the team, but when Scott’s diary was eventually recovered from the tent in which they had perished, Captain Oates’ name rapidly became a by-word for understated British heroism. Scott wrote:

"Friday, March 16 or Saturday 17. — Lost track of dates, but think the last correct.

Tragedy all along the line.

At lunch, the day before yesterday, poor Titus Oates said he couldn't go on; he proposed we should leave him in his sleeping-bag. That we could not do, and induced him to come on, on the afternoon march. In spite of its awful nature for him he struggled on and we made a few miles. At night he was worse and we knew the end had come...he woke in the morning—yesterday. It was blowing a blizzard. He said, 'I am just going outside and may be some time.' He went out into the blizzard and we have not seen him since.

We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman. We all hope to meet the end with a similar spirit, and assuredly the end is not far."

All the members of Scott’s team were suffering from exhaustion, malnutrition and the effects of extreme cold. Oates was also carrying a leg injury from the Boer War, sustained in an action that saw him recommended for the Victoria Cross. This left him with one leg an inch shorter than the other as the result of a gunshot wound that shattered his left thigh.

Exactly 100 years on, our Expedition aims to follow in the footsteps of the Legend that is Captain Oates with a team built around soldiers from his own Regiment, all of whom are also recovering from injuries sustained on active service.

In doing so, we plan to honour Lawrence Oates’ memory, and the courage of all the other soldiers in the Army as well as the other two Military Services, by reaching the Geographic South Pole.

We also hope to raise well over a million pounds for two truly great causes: Walking With The Wounded and Alzheimer’s Research UK.

We hope that our efforts may inspire you to help us to fulfil our objectives of helping wounded service men and women to face the future through re-education and retraining, and of defeating the scourge of dementia for the benefit of us all.