Bowers joined
Robert Falcon Scott's expedition after having read the accounts of Scott's earlier
Discovery expedition, and of
Ernest Shackleton's expedition in
Nimrod. He had no previous polar experience.
Bowers distinguished himself as a highly skilled organizer and was given the job of managing the expedition's stores, a task for which his extraordinary powers of memory served Scott well.
Scott had not originally planned to include "Birdie" Bowers in his polar party. He had been a member of the sledge team led by Scott's second-in-command, Lieutenant
E.R.G.R. Evans, which was the last support party to accompany Scott and his team southward. But on
January 4, 1912, when Evans turned back, Bowers was assigned to the polar party. Some have argued that this seems to have been an impulsive decision by Scott. However, others, such as Antarctic explorer
Ranulph Fiennes, have indicated that this is a logical decision - particularly when one intends to increase the speed of a polar land-crossing (in an effort to reduce the consumption of resources).
Only a few days earlier, he had ordered Evans' men to depot their skis, so that Bowers had to travel on foot to the pole while the others were still on skis. In addition, adding a fifth man to the party meant squeezing another person into a tent made for four, and having to split up rations that were packed in units for four men. The most likely motivation for Scott to add Bowers to the polar party was a realization that he needed another experienced navigator to confirm their position at the
South Pole to avoid controversy such as that surrounding the claims of
Frederick Cook and
Robert Peary at the
North Pole.
On
January 16, 1912, as Scott's party neared the
Pole, it was Bowers who first spotted a black flag left by
Roald Amundsen a month previously. Their return journey became a desperate affair, with first P.O.
Edgar Evans dying, suspected to be of a brain injury after a fall, and then
Lawrence "Titus" Oates succumbing to a terribly frostbitten foot. Scott, Bowers, and Dr.
Edward Adrian "Bill" Wilson continued on, but died in their tent 148 miles from their base camp. Their bodies were found by a search party the following spring, and were buried where they lay, under a snow cairn.
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