HMHS Britannic was a hospital ship, and the third trio of Olympic-Class liner that sunk in Aegean Sea after hitting a mine in World War I
Mine explosion[]
Britannic hitting a mine
Around 8:12 A.M. when HMHS Britannic sailed through Aegean Sea heading through Limnos, she struck a German mine, which was believed to have been planted by the SM U-73. A large explosion occured on her starboard side.
The explosion caused major damage to Cargo Hold 1 - 3, Boiler Room 5 and 6 and the Forepeak Tank, water started to flood through these conpartments rapidly.
Almost immediately, doctors and nurses felt the explosion and left their posts.
Britannic's damage sustained after hitting a mine.
Captain Bartlett ordered the watertight doors closed, but some of watertights doors were unable to close properly, Water was flowing further aft into Boiler Room 5. Later, Britannic had 6 compartments flooded, so she would've been able to stay afloat as unfortunately, there were open portholes along the front lower decks, that allowed Britannic to sink lower to reach B-Deck bulkheads to flood Boiler Room 4 and Britannic began to founder further down by the head rapidly, with a developing list to starboard.
Captain Bartlett sent out a distress call which was received by HMS Heroic and HMS Scourge. When they answered, Britannic couldn't hear them, as the wireless operaters had not realised, that after the explosion, the antenna cables had snapped between the masts, meaning it would be one-way traffic for Britannic, who could still relay messages but not receive them.
Evacuation[]
On the bridge, Captain Bartlett was already considering efforts to save the ship. Only two minutes after the blast, boiler rooms five and six had to be evacuated. In about ten minutes, Britannic was roughly in the same condition Titanic had been in one hour after the collision with the iceberg. Fifteen minutes after the ship was struck, the open portholes on E Deck were underwater. With water also entering the ship's aft section from the bulkhead between boiler rooms four and five, Britannic quickly developed a serious list to starboard due to the weight of the water flooding into the starboard side.
With the shores of the Greek island Kea to the right, Bartlett gave the order to navigate the ship towards the island in an attempt to beach the vessel. The effect of the ship's starboard list and the weight of the rudder made attempts to navigate the ship under its own power difficult, and the steering gear was knocked out by the explosion, meaning that they couldn't steer the ship anymore. The captain had to use the ship's propellers to get it to turn to starboard, thus ordering off the starboard propeller and only port and central propeller still running.
At the same time, the hospital staff prepared to evacuate. Bartlett had given the order to prepare the lifeboats, but he did not allow them to be lowered into the water. Everyone took their most valuable belongings with them before they evacuated. The chaplain of the ship recovered his Bible. The few patients and nurses on board were assembled. Major Harold Priestley gathered his detachments from the Royal Army Medical Corps to the back of the A deck and inspected the cabins to ensure no one was left behind.
Britannic's lifeboats being destroyed by its propellers in the Britannic movie
While Bartlett continued his desperate manoeuvre, the ship listed more and more. The other crew members began to fear that the list would become too large, so they decided to put the first lifeboat onto the water without waiting for the order to do so. Bartlett then decided to stop the ship and her engine. Before he could do so, two lifeboats were put onto the water on the port side without permission by Third Officer Francis Laws. The still-turning, partly surfaced propeller sucked the two lifeboats into it, completely destroying both and its occupants. Bartlett was then finally able to stop the propellers before an third Lifeboat about to be sucked into the propellers. By 08:50, most of those on board had escaped in the 35 successfully launched lifeboats. At this point, Bartlett concluded that the rate at which Britannic was sinking had slowed so he called a halt to the evacuation and ordered the engines restarted in the hope that he might still be able to beach the ship. At 09:00, Bartlett was informed that the rate of flooding had increased due to the ship's forward momentum and that the flooding had reached D-deck. Realising that there was now no hope of reaching land in time, Bartlett gave the final order to stop the engines and sounded two final long blasts of the whistle, the signal to abandon ship. As water reached the bridge, he and Assistant Commander Dyke walked off onto the deck and entered the water, swimming to a collapsible boat from which they continued to coordinate the rescue operations.
Britannic hitting the ocean floor, depicted by Anton Logvynenko
Britannic gradually capsized to starboard, and the funnels collapsed one after the other as the ship rapidly sank. By the time the stern was out of the water, the bow has crashed into the ocean floor. As Britannic's length was longer than the depth of the water, the impact caused major structural damage to the bow, and teared the forward part of the ship.
At 9:07 A.M., 55 minutes after the explosion, Britannic slipped beneath the waves, taking 30 people along with her. Violet Jessop (who boarded the Olympic when it collided with HMS Hawke and had also been survived the Titanic disaster four years prior) described 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 through the water with undreamt-of violence...."
When the Britannic sunk, she became the largest ship lost in World War I and largely forgotten by the public for several decades.