On 1 November, 14 men from the 'Terra Nova' expedition led by Captain
Robert Falcon Scott set off from Cape Evans on the long trip to the South Pole. Seventy-nine days later, Wilson was one of the five-man Polar party that reached the Pole on 18 January 1912, only to find the pole had been claimed by Norwegian
Roald Amundsen and his team just five weeks earlier.
Their return journey soon became a desperate affair due to the combination of exhaustion, lack of nutrients in their diet and exceptionally adverse weather. On 17 February, near the base of the Beardmore Glacier, petty officer
Edgar Evans died, suspected to be from a brain injury sustained after a fall into a crevasse two weeks earlier. Then, in a vain attempt to save his companions, Captain
Lawrence E.G. Oates deliberately walked out of their tent to his death on 16 March after his frostbitten feet developed gangrene. Wilson, Scott and
Henry R. Bowers continued on for three more days, progressing an extra 20 miles (32 km), but were stopped by a blizzard on 20 March, 11 miles (18 km) short of the 'One Ton' food depot that could have saved them.
The blizzard continued for days, longer than they had fuel and food for. Too weak, cold and hungry to continue, they died in their tent on or soon after 29 March-Scott's last diary entry-still 148 miles (238 km) from their base camp. Their bodies were found by a search party the following spring on 12 November 1912. Their tent was collapsed over them by the search party who then buried them where they lay, under a snow cairn, topped by a cross made from a pair of skis. When news of the tragedy reached Britain in February 1913, it was mourned nationally.
