Scientists have discovered the identity of a cannibalized victim who sailed on the doomed Northwest Passage expedition of 1845 to 1848.

Captain James Fitzjames served as captain of the HMS Erebus, but his rank didn't prevent his men from eating his remains in a desperate bid to survive.

Researchers recently identified James Fitzjames, a captain on the ill-fated HMS Erebus that went looking for the Northwest Passage in 1845

Franklin’s expedition left Kent, England, on May 19, 1845, in the hopes of finally mapping a Northwestern route around the world to Asia. By the time the crew left their ships in 1848, Franklin had been dead for almost a year, so the 105 survivors turned to a senior officer, Commander James Fitzjames, to lead their deadly, futile march.

With this research, Fitzjames becomes the first identified victim of cannibalism from the Franklin expedition. His recovered bones have been placed in a cairn, along with the others, and marked with a memorial plaque at the site of their deaths.

In 1845, Sir John Franklin set out from England with 128 men aboard two ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, on a mission to discover the Northwest Passage — a famed sea route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through a group of sparsely populated Canadian islands.