The Britannic is a hospital ship, the third and final Olympic-class ship to be ordered by the White Star Line of the Harland & Wolf shipbuilding company.
Ships of the "Olympic" class
After the launch of the liners Olympic and Titanic, War Stay Line became the owner of the largest liners in the world. The competitors were left far behind when the Olympic was launched on October 20, 1910. Later, when the Titanic appeared, it seemed that it would take a long time to surpass them.
Soon after the introduction of the "Olympic" into operation, some flaws in its design were revealed, which were eliminated on the "Titanic". This made the Titanic slightly larger and more luxurious than the Olympic. And now, when the construction of the third and last ship of the "Olympic" class was started, it had to combine all the advantages of its predecessors and not have their disadvantages. However, the most extensive changes to the design of a new vessel awaited him in the future.
1912, April 14 - the Titanic liner collided with an iceberg during its maiden voyage and sank in just 2 hours 40 minutes. More than 1,500 people died. The world was shocked. It turned out that the safety rules for the ships were hopelessly outdated, and they were immediately changed. The Olympic was immediately dispatched to Belfast for design changes and additional lifeboats. After five months of work, on April 2, 1913, the Olympic returned to service in the North Atlantic.
The construction of the third vessel was decided to stop immediately, and the intended name "Giant" was replaced by "Britannic". Although the White Star Line denied that the ship was originally intended to be called the Giant, the press statements before the sinking of the Titanic were different. The liners were to be named after the ancient Greek characters: Olympians, titans and giants. But, according to legend, the titans and giants died in the battle with the Olympians, and calling the new ship "Giant" would be the same insolence as in the case of the "Titanic". That is why the ship was named Britannic.
Olympic Britannica and Titanic.
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"The most unsinkable" ship Britannic
The engineers began to make changes to the project. Since construction was still in its early stages, it was much easier to incorporate new safety requirements. Bulkheads also passed through the passenger rooms. An additional bulkhead was added in the electrical engine room, so the ship was divided into 17 watertight compartments instead of 16. This, in theory, made it the "most unsinkable" ship capable of surviving with six front compartments flooded. Double sides were designed in places where there were boiler rooms. At the stern of the liner under construction, the well between the superstructure and the poop was blocked. Thus, deck B was now intact and was interrupted only at the bow.
Visually, the most striking new feature was the lifeboats. Instead of adding boats along the length of the boat deck, two for one pair of davits, it was decided to install 8 pairs of davits, cranes, much larger than the davits on the Titanic and Olympic. Each could hold up to 6 boats and in total would allow the Britannic to carry 48 lifeboats, of which two were equipped with their own engines and telegraph. Lifeboats were also mounted on the stern of the ship, one above the other. A pneumatic mail from the bridge to the radio room was also added.
Technical characteristics of the vessel Britannic
Displacement - 48158 tons;
Length - 269 m
Height - 18.4 m
Width - 28.65 m
Draft - 10.6 m
Power plant capacity - 50 thousand hp.
Number of steam boilers - 24
Speed - 23-25 knots
Number of passengers - 2570 people
Crew - 860 people
After conversion - 675 cabins
Number of beds - 3300
Medical staff - 489
Launching
Work on the Britannic lasted throughout 1912, but more slowly than expected. The descent was postponed several times, and only on February 26, 1914 the Britannic was launched. In keeping with White Star Line tradition, there was no ceremony to break a bottle of champagne on the side of the ship.
1914, August - the First World War began. Britannic and Olympic were put on hold before the need arose. 1915 September 1 - The Olympic was requisitioned as a military transport, and the Britannic was still unfinished in Belfast.
Conversion to a hospital ship
1915, November 13 - The Britannic was requisitioned by the Admiralty as a hospital ship. The cabins on the upper decks were converted into chambers because patients had to be as close to the boat deck as possible. The dining room and first class living room have been converted into operating theaters and the main room due to their central location. Surgeons, doctors and nurses would live in cabins on deck B to be with patients at all times. When the transformation into a hospital ship was completed, the Britannica could accommodate 3309 patients, only the Aquitaine could accommodate more, 4182 people.
There was no time to equip the ship with davits-cranes. Therefore, 5 pairs of davits-cranes and 6 standard pairs were installed, which could not hold more than 2 boats, therefore they installed a smaller number of boats.
The ship was painted in the international colors of a hospital ship: a white side, a green stripe along the hull, which was interrupted in three places on each side with red crosses. The pipes were painted mustard, the White Star Line had similar pipes, but there was no black top. These colors gave the ship the status of inviolable for all warships, according to the Geneva Agreement. 1915, December 14 - Captain Charles Bartlett was given command of His Majesty's Hospital Ship Britannic, numbered G618. By Christmas he was ready for his maiden voyage.
Maiden voyage
On December 23, the Britannic embarked on her maiden voyage, heading for the port of Mudros on the Greek island of Lemnos. After 5 days he reached Naples, the only port for taking coal and water in front of Mudros. When he reached Mudros on New Year's Eve, he began taking patients on board, which took 4 days. The Britannic arrived in Southampton on 9 January and began dropping patients off. Two more voyages were made, but by the spring of 1916 the situation in the Mediterranean became calmer and hospital ships were no longer required. The Britannic was laid up in Southampton on 12 April and stood idle for the next 5 weeks.
Then, due to financial troubles, it was decided that Britannic would be returned to the commercial service of the White Star Line. He arrived in Belfast on May 18 and was released from government service on June 6. However, by September 1916, the offensive in the Mediterranean was once again intensified, and it was obvious that large liners would again be needed as floating hospitals.
Return to war
1916, September 4 - Captain Bartlett was again given command of the Britannic, and on September 24 he was on his way to the Mediterranean for the 4th time. Another flight took place between October 20 and November 6, but the situation in the Mediterranean required that he return there almost immediately. On Sunday, November 12, at 2:23 pm, he went to Mudros for the sixth time.
Last flight
On October 28, the German submarine U-73, commanded by Gustav Ziss, laid mines in the Kea channel, between the island of Kea and mainland Greece. On Tuesday morning, November 21, the Britannic was approaching these waters at a speed of 20 knots. At 8 hours 12 minutes in the morning, the ship was suddenly shaken by an explosion in the bow from the starboard side. Major Harold Priestly immediately took command and ordered the nurses to continue breakfast as the captain had not given the order to leave the ship.
Few thought the situation was very serious, and some joked that they had rammed the submarine. And at that time the ship heeled to starboard and sank into the water with its bow. The captain gave the order to batten down the bulkheads and start sending out an SOS signal. The explosion destroyed the bulkhead at the forepeak, and in addition, the fire tunnel was also damaged, so water could enter the boiler rooms. With her four forward compartments flooded, the Britannic could still float. However, the situation was aggravated by the fact that the door in the bulkhead between boiler rooms No. 5 and No. 6 was unable to close, allowing water to pass further. Also that morning, portholes were opened on the starboard side in order to ventilate the cabins - now the deck was flooded through them.
Captain Bartlett decided to try to run the ship aground off the nearby island of Kea, but abandoned this intention, because the water got into the moving ship faster. Help was on the way, and several ships received distress signals. The evacuation continued aboard the Britannic. There were several cases of panic, and one of them was when a group of firefighters took the boat without asking. Few boats were launched, but since the ship was still moving, the crew refused to lower the boats until the ship came to a stop. Despite this precaution, an accident occurred - two boats were launched and pulled under the ship by the still rotating propeller. 21 people died under the propeller. 9 people died on the ship.
At 9 hours 7 minutes in the morning, the ship capsized on the starboard side and sank 55 minutes after the explosion. Captain Bartlett, who was in the water, swam to the boat and was pulled out of the water. By 10 o'clock the ship "Scourge" reached the place of death and began to pick up the survivors.
A total of 1,036 people were saved.
Causes of the tragedy
Soon after the tragedy, the British government put forward two official hypotheses: the ship was either torpedoed or blown up by a German mine.
Historians, to this day, are not sure of the true reasons for the crash of the Britannica. The vessel capsized and sank in just 55 minutes, but thanks to well-organized rescue work, out of 1,136 injured and crew members on board, only 30 people died. According to one of the versions, a mine left by a German submarine, and which the ship ran into, simply could not cause much damage to the liner. But the Britannic managed to stumble upon her in the coal compartment. Coal dust exploded, breaking a huge hole in the port side. According to another version, the ship was carrying weapons. Because of this, the ship was torpedoed by an enemy submarine.
Underwater exploration
1976 - Jacques Cousteau, 64 km south of Athens, was able to locate the exact location of the remains of the Britannica. The ship (about 270 meters in length and with a displacement of 48 thousand tons) lies on its side at a depth of 119 meters. Almost intact. The fault is clearly visible, which was caused by the impact on the bottom.
Cousteau discovered that the ship was 6.75 nautical miles from the site declared by the British Admiralty in 1916. According to Simon Mills, a cameraman and amateur nautical historian who bought the wreck for $ 25,000. in 1996 from another collector of shipwrecks, Mark Bamford, this discrepancy has given rise to several theories. It got to the point that some of the researchers even suggested that the British government itself sunk the ship as a propaganda move to involve the United States in the war.
The head of one of the 5 expeditions, Nick Hope, assured that he did not find traces of the explosions of a German mine. A member of Hope's crew was able to break into the stoker's tunnel to ascertain if the sealed hatches in the ship's bulkheads were battened down. He found that one hatch was open. “According to another version, - says Hope, - the windows near the waterline were open …”
Interesting Facts
On board the ship Britannic was Nurse Violet Jessop. She was in a boat, which was pulled under the propeller of a sinking ship, and survived. Also, the girl was able to safely survive the death of the older brother of "Britannica" - "Titanic". What's even more surprising is that Violet Jessop was a flight attendant on the Olympic (the older brother of both liners) when it collided with the cruiser Hawk in the port of Southampton.
