Fortuna Glacier is a tidewater glacier at the mouth of

Cumberland Bay Cumberland Bay is a bay, wide at its entrance between Larsen Point and Barff Point, which separates into two extensive arms, Cumberland West Bay and Cumberland East Bay, which recede inland along the northern coast of South Georgia. It ...

on the island of

South Georgia South Georgia ( es, Isla San Pedro) is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around east of the Falkland Islands. Stretching in the east� ...

. It flows in a northeast direction to its terminus just west of Cape Best, with an eastern distributary almost reaching the west side of Fortuna Bay, on the north coast of South Georgia. It was named in about 1912, presumably after the whale catcher ''Fortuna'', and is notable for two major events in the 20th Century.

1916

In mid-April 1915, explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship '' Endurance'', carrying the 27 members of his Antarctic expedition, became locked in the polar ice in the Weddell Sea just off Antarctica. In the spring of 1916, as the ice warmed and drifted north, the ship was crushed. The party used the lifeboats to get to Elephant Island, a desolate, uninhabited island at the edge of the

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctic ...

. There they were stranded. Shackleton and five others crammed into a lifeboat, the '' James Caird'', sailed across the Scotia Sea for , reaching South Georgia two weeks later. They landed on the island's uninhabited west side at King Haakon Bay. Poor weather prevented them from setting sail again to one of the whaling stations on the island's east side, which were the only human habitation on South Georgia. Instead they had to cross the largely unknown interior of the island. Shackleton beached his boat and with two others made his traverse of the island, crossing the Fortuna Glacier in the process. Thirty-six hours later they reached

Stromness Stromness (, non, Straumnes; nrn, Stromnes) is the second-most populous town in Orkney, Scotland. It is in the southwestern part of Mainland Orkney. It is a burgh with a parish around the outside with the town of Stromness as its capital. E ...

whaling station.

1982

When Argentina militarily occupied the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, the British Armed Forces recaptured the island in '

Operation Paraquet Operation Paraquet was the code name for the British military operation to recapture the island of South Georgia from Argentine military control in April 1982 at the start of the Falklands War. The operation, a subsidiary of the main Operatio ...

', thereby removing the Argentinian military presence and restoring the island to British Sovereignty. It was decided to land a mountain troop of

Special Air Service The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terro ...

and 42 Royal Marine Commandos on the glacier, to approach

Grytviken Grytviken ( ) is a settlement on South Georgia in the South Atlantic and formerly a whaling station and the largest settlement on the island. It is located at the head of King Edward Cove within the larger Cumberland East Bay, considered the b ...

from the most unlikely direction. After the troops were landed on the glacier in conditions of extremely poor visibility and gale extreme force winds on 21 April, their conditions deteriorated rapidly still further. During several repeated rescue attempts the following day by a Wessex 3 (Antrim) and two Wessex V (Tidespring) helicopters, the Wessex V aircraft crashed in extreme weather conditions. The Wessex 3, crewed by Lt Cdr Ian Stanley, Lt Chris Parry, Sub Lt Stewart Cooper and PO ACMN David Fitzgerald, succeeded in rescuing all troops and aircrew in an amazing feat of flying and navigation just before dark. On returning to Antrim, the Wessex 3 (which can be seen at the

Fleet Air Arm Museum The Fleet Air Arm Museum is devoted to the history of British naval aviation. It has an extensive collection of military and civilian aircraft, aero engines, models of aircraft and Royal Navy ships (especially aircraft carriers), and paintin ...

Yeovilton Yeovilton is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Yeovilton and District, in Somerset, England, east of Ilchester and north of Yeovil, in South Somerset district. The parish had a population of 1,226 in the 2011 census, est ...

, Somerset) held 16 personnel instead of its normal 4 capacity.

References

{{Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition Glaciers of South Georgia Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition Falklands War in South Georgia

1916

1982

See also

References