HMHS Britannic

The "Forgotten" Sister

The last of the three ships that Harland and Wolff built for the White Star Line under the agreement reached in 1907 was the Britannic, which was originally to be named the Gigantic. The keel was laid for hull number 433 prior to the maiden voyage of the Titanic, but construction was halted after the Titanic sank. Before construction resumed, a number of changes were made to the ship, including a name change from Gigantic to Britannic, a double hull that increased Britannic's beam by two feet and watertight bulkheads which reached as far as "B" deck - the Titanic's watertight bulkheads only went as far as "E" deck. The Britannic was also outfitted with giant-sized lifeboat davits. Those davits could each hold six lifeboats.The Britannic was finally launched on February 26, 1914. The White Star Line planned on putting the Britannic into service between New York and Southampton in the spring of 1915. That was never to be.

In August 1914 the major European powers stumbled into World War I. The British Admiralty requisitioned the Britannic and her nearly-completed interior was transformed into dormatories and operating rooms for duties as a hospital ship. The photographs below, as do most photographs of this ship, shows the Britannic in that role, as His Majesty's Hospital Ship (HMHS) Britannic. The Britannic entered war service on December 12, 1915, painted in white with a green stripe and red crosses on her side.

The Britannic made a several successful voyages ferrying wounded soldiers from the battlefronts. On a voyage to Salonika on November 21, 1916, however, while en route to pick up still more wounded soldiers, an explosion rocked the Britannic as she sailed through the Kea Channel in the Aegean Sea. The Britannic began to sink quickly by the bow and her captain tried to beach the ship on Kea Island. However, that attempt failed and the Britannic sank within an hour. Fortunately, there were sufficient lifeboats for the 1,100 persons aboard and the only casualties were caused when the Britannic's captain started her engines in an attempt to beach her before she sank. Lifeboats that were near the stern of the ship were caught in the propellers, killing the occupants.

His Majesty's Hospital Ship Britannic, shown here painted white with a green stripe and the red crosses denoting her duties as a hospital ship. The Britannic today lies in 350 feet of water and is the largest liner lying on the ocean floor. The wreck of the Britannic was originally discovered in 1976 by French undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau. Cousteau's expedition found that the Britannic was largely intact with the exception of a large hole in her bow caused by the explosion of a mine or torpedo. The discoverer of the Titanic, Dr. Robert Ballard, has voiced plans of turning the wreck of the Britannic into an underwater museum, using technology to allow visitors to view the wreck as if they were there.

There is still a debate on just what sank the Britannic and why she sank so quickly. Some say that the Britannic struck a mine while others insist that a German U-boat torpedoed the hospital ship. A recent study of the wreck of the Britannic discovered that her watertight doors remained open after the explosion and that the portholes on her lower decks were open, allowing the water to flow freely through the watertight bulkheads! Thus, the Britannic sank in less than an hour, as opposed to the two and one-half hours it took the Titanic to sink, as a result of human error that undid the technological safeguards which Harland and Wolff had built into her! Ironically, the Britannic never carried a single fare-paying passenger.

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Last Updated Sunday, May 14, 2000