HMHS BRITANNIC

'HMHS ''Britannic (1914)''', the third and largest ''Olympic''-class ocean liner of the White Star Line, sister ship of RMS ''Olympic'' and RMS ''Titanic'', sank in 1916 after hitting a mine with the loss of 30 lives. Although the White Star Line always denied what they called a "legend",^[1] most sources say that the ship was originally intended to be named ''Gigantic''^[2] (this is supported by a White Star pamphlet that advertised "The Gigantic"). In the aftermath of the ''Titanic'' disaster, the name was changed to ''Britannic'', making it the second of three ships to be so named (see R.M.S. Britannic).

Contents

History

Requisitioning

Last voyage

Explosion

Evacuation

Final moments

Rescue

The Wreck

Pipe organ

See also

References

Notes

External links

History

''Britannic'' was launched on February 26, 1914 at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast and fitting out began. In August 1914, before ''Britannic'' could commence transatlantic service between New York and Southampton, World War I began. 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.

Requisitioning

The need for increased tonnage grew critical as military operations extended to the eastern Mediterranean. In May 1915 ''Britannic'' completed mooring trials of her engines, and was prepared for emergency entrance into service with as little as four weeks notice. The same month also saw the first major loss of a civilian ocean vessel when the Cunard liner RMS ''Lusitania'' was torpedoed near the Irish coast by a German submarine.
The following month, the British Admiralty decided to use recently requisitioned passenger liners as troop transports during the Gallipoli campaign (also called the ''Dardanelles service''). The first to sail were Cunard's RMS ''Mauretania'' and RMS ''Aquitania''. As the Gallipoli landings proved to be disastrous and the casualties mounted, the need for large hospital ships for treatment and evacuation of wounded became evident. RMS ''Aquitania'' was diverted to hospital ship duties in August (her place as a troop transport would be taken by the RMS ''Olympic'' in September) and on November 13 1915, ''Britannic'' was requisitioned as a hospital ship from her storage location at Belfast. Repainted white with large red crosses and a horizontal green stripe, she was renamed HMHS (His Majesty's Hospital Ship) ''Britannic'' and placed under the command of Captain Charles A. Bartlett.

Last voyage

After completing five successful voyages to the Middle Eastern theatre and back to the United Kingdom transporting the sick and wounded, ''Britannic'' departed Southampton for Lemnos at 14:23 on November 12, 1916, her sixth voyage in the Mediterranean Sea. The ''Britannic'' passed Gibraltar around midnight on November 15 and arrived at Naples on the morning of November 17 for her usual coaling and water refuelling stop, completing the first stage of her mission.
A storm kept the ship at Naples until Sunday afternoon, when Captain Bartlett decided to take advantage of a brief break in the weather and 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 21. 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.

Explosion

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. Not everybody reacted the same way, as further aft the power of the explosion was less felt and many thought the ship had hit a smaller boat. Captain Bartlett and Chief Officer Hume were on the bridge at the time, and 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 distress signal and ordered the crew to prepare the lifeboats. Unfortunately, another surprise was waiting. Along with the damaged watertight door of the firemen's tunnel, the watertight door between boiler rooms six and five also failed to close properly for an unknown reason. Now water was flowing further aft into boiler room five. The ''Britannic'' had reached her flooding limit. She could stay afloat (motionless) with its first six watertight compartments flooded and had five watertight bulkheads raised up to the B-deck. Those measures were taken after the ''Titanic'' disaster (''Titanic'' could float with its first four compartments flooded and the bulkheads only went as high as E-deck). Luckily, the next crucial bulkhead between boiler rooms five and four and its door were undamaged and should have guaranteed the survival of the ship. However, there was something else that probably sealed ''Britannic's'' fate: the open portholes 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.

Evacuation

On the bridge, Captain Bartlett was trying 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. Water also entered the ship's aft section 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. It was sinking.
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 six feet (2 m) from the water and waited for orders from the bridge. The occupants of the lifeboats did not 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 had not filled it to 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 6 feet 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, both lifeboats, together with their occupants, were torn to pieces. 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.

Final moments

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 First officer Oliver came with orders from the Captain. Bartlett had ordered Oliver to get in the motor launch and use its speed to pick up survivors from the smashed lifeboats. Then he was to take charge of the small fleet of lifeboats formed around the dying ''Britannic''. After launching the motor launch with Oliver, the unknown officer filled another lifeboat with seventy five men and launched it with great difficulty because the port side was now very high from the surface due to the list to starboard. At 08:45 the list to starboard was so great that no davits were operable. The unknown officer with six sailors decided to move to midship on the boat deck in order to throw overboard collapsible rafts and deck chairs from the starboard side. They were followed by about thirty RAMC personnel who were still left on the ship. As he was about to order these men to jump and then give his final report to the Captain, the unknown officer spotted Sixth officer Welch 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 ventilated the engine room.
The ''Britannic'' rolled over onto her starboard side and the funnels began collapsing. Violet Jessop saw the last seconds: "She dipped her head a little, then a little lower and still lower. All the deck machinery fell into the sea like a child's toys. Then she took a fearful plunge, her stern rearing hundreds of feet into the air until with a final roar, she disappeared into the depths, the noise of her going resounding though the water with undreamt-of violence...". It was 09:07, only fifty five minutes after the explosion. The ''Britannic'' then became a time capsule on the bottom of the Aegean.

Rescue

The first to arrive on the scene were the Greek fishermen from Kea on their kaikia, who picked up many men from the water. One of them, Francesco Psilas, was later paid £4 by the Admiralty for his services. At 10:00 HMS ''Scourge'' sighted the first lifeboats and ten minutes later stopped and picked up 339 survivors. HMS ''Heroic'' had arrived some minutes earlier and picked up 494. Some 150 had made it to Korissia (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 grey-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 . . . 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 Pireaus signalling the presence of those left at Korissia. Luckily, HMS ''Foxhound'' arrived at 11:45 and, after sweeping the area, anchored in the small port at 13:00 to offer medical assistance and take onboard the remaining survivors. At 14:00 arrived the light cruiser HMS ''Foresight''. The ''Foxhound'' departed for Pireaus at 14:15 while the ''Foresight'' remained to arrange the burial on Kea of Sergeant W. Sharpe, 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 honours in the British cemetery at Pireaus. The last fatality was G. Honeycott, who died at the Russian Hospital at Pireaus shortly after the funerals.
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 honoured 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

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. 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 882 feet 9 inches (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 sea floor 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 the German records of ''U-73'' that ''Britannic'' was sunk by a single mine and the damage was compounded by open portholes and watertight doors.

Pipe organ

It was also planned to install a Welte Philharmonic Organ onboard the Britannic. Due to the outbreak of WWI the instrument never made its way to Belfast.
During the restoration of the Welte-Organ now in the Swiss National Museum in Seewen the restorers detected in April 2007 that the main parts of the instruments were signed by the German non English-speaking organ builders with "Britanik", to get the parts once together. A photo of a drawing in a company prospectus, found in the Welte-legacy in the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg, proved that this was the organ for the Britannic.

See also

★ Titanic

★ Britannic (film)

References

★ ''Hostage to Fortune'', by Simon Mills

★ ''The Olympic-Class Ships'', by Mark Chirnside

★ ''Atlantic Liners: A Trio of Trios'', by J. Kent Layton

Notes

1. [1] Website viewed February 12, 2006.
2. Great Ship Disasters, Bonner, Kit & Bonner, Carolyn, , , MBI Publishing Company, 2003, ISBN 0-7603-1336-9

External links

★ Maritimequest HMHS ''Britannic'' Photo Gallery

★ The Britannic Foundation

★ ''Britannic Home'' at Atlantic Liners

★ NOVA Online-Titanic's Lost Sister (Companion website to the PBS special ''Titanic's Lost Sister'')

★ Hospital Ship Britannic

★ Michail Michailakis: Britannic's pipe organ. Online at www.hospitalshipbritannic.com, version from June 19 2007

★ About the origins of the Britannic Organ