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On This Day: The Titanic’s sister ship Britannic is launched – only to also sink two years later
FEBRUARY 26, 1914: The Titanic’s sister ship HMHS Britannic was launched on this day in 1914 – only to follow her sibling’s dismal fate by sinking two years later.
The hospital craft, which British Pathé filmed rolling out to sea from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, was the largest vessel to sink during the First World War.
Of the 1,066 people on board, 30 died – compared to 1,517 killed on the Titanic – when the Britannic hit a mine off the Greek island of Kea on November 21, 1916.
Despite her design being modified for safety, the force of the explosion ripped open a watertight bulkhead, which flooded six compartments and caused the ship to list.
The Titanic’s watertight compartments had also flooded after its hull burst open when it hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic on the night of April 14, 1912.
The difference with the Britannic, which the Admiralty commandeered in 1915 and renamed as His Majesty’s Hospital Ship, was that its specially fitted double hull probably could have withstood such a fate.
However it was no match for a sea mine that was most likely laid by the Ottoman Empire, which fought on the same side as Germany and Austria-Hungary in the war.
The Britannic, which was travelling to pick up wounded soldiers in Cyrpus, may have remained afloat if nurses had not opened most of the portholes to ventilate the wards.
At 8.35am – 23 minutes after the explosion – Captain Charles Bartlett ordered the ship's evacuation, having realised he didn’t have time to beach her three miles away.
Thirty-seven out of the Brtannic’s 48 lifeboats – compared to the Titanic’s mere 20 - were lowered, one of the main reasons why so many survivors.
[On This Day: Titanic finally sinks]
In a cruel twist of fate, those who died were the occupants of two lifeboat that were cut to shreds by the ship’s still-spinning propellers as they were rose into the air
Captain Bartlett, who bravely carried out his duty by being the last man on the ship, was washed off his bridge at 9am and was able to swim to safety.
The Britannic eventually sank at 9.07am – 55 minutes after the explosion – a time far quicker than the Titanic, which took two hours and 40 minutes to be totally submerged.
Among those watching was nurse Violet Jessop, who also survived Britannic’s other sister ship RMS Olympic colliding with HMS Hawke in 1911 and the Titanic disaster.
Described the last seconds of the Britannic, she said: '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 through the water with undreamt-of violence.'
[On This Day: HMS Sheffield destroyed by Argentina during Falklands War]
Aside from the amount of lifeboats – enough to rescue three times the actual number on board – several other factors helped 1,033 men and women survive.
Rescue was aided by the water being a balmy 21C, which was significantly warmer than the –2C conditions endured by victims of the Titanic disaster.
[On This Day: World’s first nuclear passenger ship]
Greek fishermen, having seen distress flares, were quickly able to pick some men up out of the sea – with volunteer Francesco Psilas receiving a £4 reward.
And it took only two hours for HMS Scourge and other ships to reach the Britannic, which was rumoured to have been originally going to be called RMS Gigantic.
By comparison, the 710 survivors on the Titanic had to wait three and a half hours for the first wave of help to arrive.
While the Britannic, which was 2ft wider than the Titanic due to safety modifications, was the largest ship to sink in the war, it was among the least deadly disasters at sea.
Its death toll was dwarfed by the sinking of RMS Lusitania - with 1,198 passengers and crew killed - after it was torpedoed by a German U-Boat on May 7, 1915.
[On This Day: Plane crash in Shannon, Ireland, kills 34]
And The Titanic disaster, which remains the best-known peacetime maritime tragedy, is actually only the sixth most deadly in history.
It was massively eclipsed by the deaths of 4,431 people after the Doña Paz ferry hit the Vector oil tanker off the coast of the Philippines on December 20, 1987.
