I should have been more specific about WHY I consider Tom Crean to be a genuine hero. Perhaps the most dramatic was Crean's 35 mile solo trek across the ice sustained by "3 biscuits and 2 sticks of chocolate" to save two members of Scott's 'Terra Nova' expedition. He played a major role in the incredible saga of the Shackleton expedition in which NOT A SINGLE LIFE WAS LOST during their 22 months [!] spent adrift on the Antarctic ice and sea, drifting on ice floes and huddled on a tiny barren rocky island. Tom Crean, along with Shakleton and 4 others made the incredible 17 day voyage of some 800 miles through some of the roughest seas on the planet in an open ship's boat, the 'James Caird.' The voyage has been called "one of the greatest boat journeys ever accomplished." Then to top it off, Crean, Shackleton and the captain of 'Endurance,' Frank Worsley, made the first ever crossing over the snow covered mountains of South Georgia Island without maps or mountaineering equipment and with little food, to reach the whaling station on the other side of the large island and then to lead rescue expeditions to save first, the 3 men left behind where the 'James Caird' made landfall and then the other 22 members of the expedition back on Elepahant Island near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

YouTube has several videos related to Tom Crean. The one noted by mg has, in addition to the song sung by members of the crew of the Endurance, many photos of the expedition. Unfortunately, I found it difficult to understand a major portion of the lyrics. On another YouTube number, Mairtin de Cagan and Jimmy Crowley, sing a different "Ballad of Tom Crean," a rousing number of which the lyrics are much more understandable. There are several other video tributes to Tom Crean, including a still different musical number, and more photos taken during the expedition by one of it's members, Frank Hurley.

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