Tom's third and final expedition to the South Pole took place in 1914. The ship was called Endurance.
This expedition was headed by Sir Ernest Shackleton. He wanted to walk from coast to coast of the Antartic Continent, a very daring and dangerous mission of over 2800 kms.

But Endurance encountered many hardships and became totally surrounded and embedded in floating ice. There was nothing the crew could do except wait to see what happened or where they would drift to. In the meantime they carried on with their daily chores. One of Tom's jobs was to look after the sleigh dogs, one of which had four pups born on board. Tom named them Roger, Toby, Nell and Nelson.

The Endurance drifted over 1500 kms away from where it had intended to land
but it still had not broken free from the ice. Suddenly the 28 crewmen heard the timber of the ship beginning to weaken under the huge pressure from the ice. They knew Endurance was going to sink. They packed as they could and prepared to leave with the animals and equipment.
The ship sank in November 1915.

They tried travelling through the ice but could only manage about two kms a day. They had to shoot some of the animals as they could not feed them, heartbreaking as this was for all of them. Food was running low and they men were exhausted but the nearest land was still hundreds of miles away.
When water eventually opened up through the ice the men travelled in the lifeboats they had taken from the ship to Elephant island. A small uninhabited island where nobody had ever been. They reached this island over a year and four months after they had first set sail.

Six men including Tom set sail for South Georgia for help. It was a viciosly dangerous task but they had no choice. It was either that or face death on Elephant Island and yet there were no guarantees they would reach there destination alive. It was over 1000kms through deadly seas.
After many narrow escapes at the mercy of the weather they men reached land and almost collapsed on the beach.
Three of them, Tom, Shackleton and Skipper Worsley then had to walk for a day and a half, through tough icy conditions,to find people working in the whaling stations.
The following day their three comrades were rescued. However it took a few months to rescue the men on Elephant Island due to the severity of the weather. They had all suffered enormously and were lucky to be alive.
The 28 courageous men were taaken to Chile where they received a wondrous reception and later travelled back to their own countries.