Jump to content

The Sinking Of The Britannic


MiloMorai

Recommended Posts

HMHS Britannic was the third and largest Olympic-class ocean liner of the White Star Line. She was the sister ship of RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic, and was intended to enter service as a transatlantic passenger liner. She was launched just before the start of the First World War and was laid up at her builders in Belfast for many months before being put to use as a hospital ship in 1915. In that role she was shaken by an explosion, caused by an underwater mine, in the Kea Channel off the Greek island of Kea on the morning of 21 November 1916, and sank, thankfully, with the loss of just 30 lives.

There were 1,066 people on board, with 1,036 survivors taken from the water and lifeboats, roughly an hour later, at 9:07 AM, the ship sank. In spite of Britannic being the biggest ship lost during the First World War, her sinking was not as tragic in terms of loss of human life as were the sinking of RMS Titanic and Cunard's RMS Lusitania.

http://www.bluebird-electric.net/submarines/sinking_of_the_britannic_u_boat_mine_attack.htm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

Jacques Cousteau is mentioned in that article as thinking Britannic was torpedoed.

 

"The first to arrive on the scene were the Greek fishermen from Kea on their caïque, who picked up many men from the water. One of the fishermen, Francesco Psilas, was later paid £4 by the Admiralty for his services."

 

A medal of some type might have been more appropriate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They probably figured that they were poor, and if they gave him a medal he would have to sell it. That wasnt uknown even among VC winners.

 

The 30 who died, many of them were from a lifeboat that went into the still rotating screws. The ship might have been saved, if it were not for many of the crew disobeying orders to keep portholes shut. During the drive to get her ashore, she was picking up more and more water through open portholes as her bow dipped below the waters.

 

On the positive side, it showed lessons had been learned from the Titanic. The evacuations system, overkill though it was, worked largely perfectly. Lessons had been learned.

 

It seems most likely it was a Mine, though as we saw in British waters, the Germans were not adverse to sinking hospital ships in WW1.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...