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| Owner: | White Star Line |
| Builder: | Harland And Wolff yards in Belfast , Ireland |
| Laid down: | November 30 , 1911 |
| Launched: | February 26 , 1914 |
| Christened: | Not Christened |
| Maiden voyage: | December 23 , 1915 (As hospital ship) |
| Fate: | Served as hospital ship for less than a year. Sank because of a mine hit on November 21 , 1916 |
| General Characteristics |
|---|
| Tonnage: | 50,000 |
| Length: | 882ft 9in |
| Length between perpendiculars | 852ft 6in |
| Beam: | 94 feet |
| Power: | 29 boilers.Two four cylinder triple expansion reciprocating engines each producing 16000 hp for outer two propellers. One low pressure turbine producing 18000 hp for the center propeller. Total 50,000 hp |
| Propulsion: | Two bronze triple blade side propellers.One bronze quadruple blade central propeller. |
| Speed: | 22 knots |
'' was the third ''Olympic''-class ship of the
White Star Line , sister ship of
RMS ''Titanic'' and
RMS ''Olympic'' . Although the White Star Line has always denied what they call a "legend", most sources say that it was originally intended to be named ''Gigantic''. In the aftermath of the ''Titanic'' disaster, and the patriotic feelings in the
United Kingdom on the verge of the
First World War , its name was changed to ''Britannic''.
''Britannic'' was launched on
February 26 ,
1914 at the
Harland & Wolff shipyards in
Belfast and fitting out began. Before ''Britannic'' could commence transatlantic service between
New York and
Southampton , in August 1914, the
Triple Entente (United Kingdom,
France and
Russia ) declared war on the
Triple Alliance (
Germany ,
Austria-Hungary and the
Ottoman Empire ). It had been thought that the war would be over by
Christmas ; however, it was soon apparent that this would not be so. Immediately, all shipyards with
Admiralty contracts were given top priority to use available raw materials. All civil contracts (including the ''Britannic'') were slowed down. The military authorities requisitioned a large number of ships as armed merchant cruisers or for troop transport. The Admiralty was paying the companies for the use of their vessels but the risk of losing a ship during military operations was high. However, the big ocean liners were not taken for military use as smaller vessels were much easier to operate. The White Star decided to withdraw RMS ''Olympic'' from service until the danger had passed. RMS ''Olympic'' returned to Belfast on
November 3 1914 while work on its sister continued slowly. All this would change in 1915.
The need for increased tonnage became crucial as military operations extended to the eastern
Mediterranean , where a new German ally entered the war, the
Ottoman Empire . In May, the ''Britannic'' completed the mooring trials of its engines. In case of an emergency it could be ready to sail after four weeks. That same month came the first major loss. The
Cunard liner
RMS ''Lusitania'' was torpedoed near the
Irish coast by a German
Submarine while returning from New York. No warning was given before the
Torpedo's launch, as declared by war conventions. The ship sank in only eighteen minutes because of a secondary explosion of coal dust present in the empty holds. 1,200 civilians lost their lives in the Atlantic waters. Cunard and White Star remained with two giant liners each.
In June, the Admiralty finally decided to use the large ocean liners for the
Gallipoli campaign (also called the ''
Dardanelles service''). The first to go were the
RMS ''Mauretania'' and the
RMS ''Aquitania'' . Soon everyone realised that the Gallipoli landings would be a failure. The number of casualties reached appalling numbers and now the need was for larger hospital ships. So RMS ''Aquitania'' was diverted to hospital ship duties in August (its place as a troop transport was taken by the RMS ''Olympic'' in September). The casualties continued to mount and it was clear that ''Britannic'' couldn't rest useless in Belfast anymore. On
November 13th , 1915 the ''Britannic'' was requisitioned as a
Hospital Ship and the ship was repainted for that service. It was renamed HMHS (His Majesty's Hospital Ship) ''Britannic'' and placed under the command of
Captain Charles A. Bartlett .
After completing five successful voyages to the and arrived at
Naples on the morning of the
November 17th for its usual coaling and water refueling stop, completing the first stage of its mission.
A storm kept the ship at Naples until Sunday afternoon. Then Captain Bartlett decided to take advantage of a brief break in the weather and decided to continue on. The seas rose once again just as ''Britannic'' left the port but by next morning the storms died and the ship passed the
Strait Of Messina without problems.
Cape Matapan was rounded during the first hours of Tuesday
November 21st . By the morning ''Britannic'' was steaming at full speed (around 21
Knots ) into the
Kea Channel , between
Cape Sounion (the southernmost point of
Attica , the province which includes
Athens ) and the island of
Kea .
At 08:12 on Tuesday,
November 21 1916 , a loud explosion shook the ship. The reaction in the dining room was immediate. Doctors and nurses left instantly for their posts. However, not everybody reacted the same way. Further
Aft the power of the explosion was less felt and many thought the ship had hit a smaller boat. On the bridge at the time of the explosion, were Captain Bartlett and
Chief Officer Hume . The gravity of the situation was soon evident. The first reports were frightening. The explosion had taken place on the
Starboard side between holds two and three, but the force of the explosion had also damaged the watertight
Bulkhead between hold one and the
Forepeak . That meant that the first four watertight compartments were filling rapidly with water. To make things worse, the
Firemen's tunnel connecting the firemen's quarters in the bow with boiler room six had also been seriously damaged and water was flowing into that boiler room.
Bartlett ordered the watertight doors closed, sent a of the lower decks. Most of those portholes had been opened by the nurses in order to ventilate the wards. As the ship's list increased, water reached this level and water began to enter aft from the bulkhead between boiler rooms five and four. With more than six compartments flooded, the ''Britannic'' could not stay afloat.
On the bridge, Captain Bartlett was trying to choose the best action in order to save his vessel. Only two minutes after the blast boiler rooms five and six had to be evacuated. In other words, in about ten minutes the ''Britannic'' was roughly in the same condition the ''Titanic'' was one hour after the collision with the
Iceberg . Fifteen minutes after the ship was struck the open portholes on E-deck were underwater. That fact probably compromised the ''Britannic''. Water entered the ship's aft from the bulkhead between boiler rooms five and four. The ''Britannic'' quickly developed a serious list to
Starboard . To his right Bartlett saw the shores of Kea, about three miles away. He decided to make a last desperate effort by trying to beach the ship. This was not an easy task because of the combined effect of the list and the weight of the
Rudder . The steering gear was unable to respond properly but by using the
Propeller (giving more power to the left one) ''Britannic'' slowly started to turn right.
Simultaneously, on the boat deck the crew members were preparing the lifeboats. Some of the boats were immediately rushed by a group of
Stewards and some sailors, who had started to panic. An unknown officer kept his nerve and persuaded his sailors to get out and stand by their positions near the boat stations. He decided to leave the stewards on the lifeboats as they were responsible for starting the panic and he didn't want them in his way during the evacuation. However, he left one of the crew with them in order to take charge of the lifeboat after leaving the ship. After this episode all the sailors under his command remained at their posts until the last moment. As no
RAMC personnel were near this boat station at that time, the Officer started to lower the boats, but, when he saw that the ship's engines were still running, he stopped them within 6ft from the water and waited for orders from the bridge. The occupants of the lifeboats didn't take this decision very well and started cursing. Shortly after this, orders finally arrived: no lifeboats should be launched, as the Captain had decided to beach the Britannic.
Assistant Commander
Harry William Dyke was making the arrangements for the lowering of the lifeboats from the aft davits of the starboard boat deck when he spotted a group of firemen who had taken a lifeboat from the
Poop Deck without authority and hadn't filled it to its maximum capacity. Dyke ordered them to pick up some of the men who had already jumped into the water.
At 08:30 two lifeboats from the boat station assigned to
Third Officer David Laws were lowered without his knowledge through the use of the automatic release gear. Those two lifeboats dropped some 6ft into the water and hit the water violently. The two lifeboats soon drifted into the giant running propellers, which were almost out of the water by now. As the first one reached the turning blades, the tragedy of the day took place: both lifeboats, together with their occupants, were torn to pieces. The spectacle was horrifying and beyond imagination. By then the word of the massacre arrived on the bridge. Captain Bartlett, seeing that water was entering more rapidly as ''Britannic'' was moving and that there was a risk of more victims, gave the order to stop the engines. The propellers stopped turning the moment a third lifeboat was about to be reduced to pieces. RAMC occupants of this boat pushed against the blades and got away from them safely.
The Captain officially ordered the crew to lower the boats and at 08:35 he gave the order to abandon ship. The forward set of port side davits soon became useless. The unknown officer had already launched his two lifeboats and also managed to launch rapidly one more boat from the after set of port side davits. He then started to prepare the motor launch when and a few sailors near one of the smaller lifeboats on the starboard side. They were trying to lift the boat but they hadn't enough men. Quickly, the unknown officer ordered his group of forty men to assist the Sixth officer. Together they managed to lift it, load it with men and then launch it safely.
At 09:00 Bartlett sounded one last blast on the whistle and then just walked into the water, which had already reached the bridge. He swam to a collapsible boat and began to co-ordinate the rescue operations. The whistle blow was the final signal for the ship's engineers (commanded by
Chief Engineer Robert Fleming ) who, like their heroic colleagues on the ''Titanic'', had remained at their posts until the last possible moment. They escaped via the staircase into funnel #4 which was serving to ventilate the engine room.
The ''Britannic'' rolled over onto its starboard side and the funnels began collapsing. on the bottom of the
Aegean .
The first to arrive on the scene were the (a community on Kea), where surviving doctors and nurses from the ''Britannic'' were trying to save the horribly mutilated men using aprons and pieces of
Lifebelts to make dressings. A little barren quayside served as their operating room. Although the motor launches were quick to transport the wounded to Korissia, the first lifeboat arrived there some two hours later due to the strong current and their heavy load. It was the lifeboat of Sixth Officer Welch and the unknown Officer. The latter was able to speak some
French and managed to talk with one of the local villagers, obtaining some bottles of
Brandy and some bread for the injured.
The inhabitants of Korissia were deeply moved by the suffering of the wounded. They offered all possible assistance to the survivors and hosted many of them in their houses while waiting for the rescue ships. Violet Jessop approached one of the wounded. "An elderly man, in an RAMC uniform with a row of ribbons on his breast, lay motionless on the ground. Part of his thigh was gone and one foot missing; the gray green hue of his face contrasted with his fine physique. I took his hand and looked at him. After a long time, he opened his eyes and said: 'I'm dying'. There seemed nothing to disprove him yet I involuntarily replied: 'No, you are not going to die, because I've just been praying for you to live'. He gave me a beautiful smile
{Link without Title} That man lived and sang jolly songs for us on Christmas Day.".
The ''Scourge'' and ''Heroic'' had no deck space for more survivors and they left for , who had died of his injuries. Another two men died on the ''Heroic'' and one on the French
Tug ''Goliath''. The three were buried with military honors in the British cemetery at Pireaus. The last fatality was
G. Honeycott , who died at the Russian Hospital at Pireaus shortly after the funerals.
A total of 1,036 people were saved. Thirty men lost their lives in the disaster but only five were buried. The others were left in the water and their memory is honored in memorials in
Thessaloniki and
London . Another twenty four men were injured. Luckily, the ship had no patients. If that had been the case probably the death toll would have been much higher, perhaps even greater than the ''Titanic''. The survivors were hosted in the warships that were anchored at the port of Pireaus. However, the nurses and the officers were hosted in separate hotels at
Phaleron . Many Greek citizens and officials attended the funerals.
The wreck of HMHS ''Britannic'' is located at in about 400 ft (120 m) of water. It was first discovered and explored by
Jacques Cousteau in 1975. The giant liner lies on her starboard side hiding the zone of impact with the mine (or torpedo). There is a huge hole just beneath the forward well deck. The
Bow is attached to the rest of the hull only by some pieces of the B-deck. This is the result of the massive explosion that destroyed completely the entire part of the keel between bulkheads 2 and 3 and of the force of impact with the seabed. The bow is bent and deformed in the front part because it reached the seabed before the 882ft 9in (269 m) long liner was completely sunk. Despite this, the crew's quarters in the forecastle were found to be in good shape with many details still visible. The holds were found empty. The forecastle machinery and the two cargo cranes in the forward well deck are still there and they are well-preserved. The foremast is bent and lies on the seafloor near the wreck with the crow's nest still attached on it. The bell was not found. Funnel #1 was found a few metres from the Boat Deck. The wreck lies in shallow enough water that
Scuba divers can explore it, but it is a British
War Grave and any expedition must be approved by both the British and Greek governments.
In
1996 Dr
Robert Ballard relocated the wreck, using advanced side-scanning sonar. Images were obtained from remotely controlled vehicles, but the wreck was not penetrated. Ballard succeeded in locating all the ship's funnels, which proved to be in surprisingly good condition. Attempts to find mine anchors failed.
In
2003 , an expedition led by
Carl Spencer used advanced diving technology to send scuba divers into the wreck. Their most significant finding was that several watertight doors were open. It has been suggested that this was because the mine strike coincided with the change of watches. Alternatively, the explosion may have distorted the door frames.
A number of mine anchors were located, confirming German records of U-73. ''Britannic'' was sunk by a single mine and the damage was compounded by open portholes and open watertight doors.
