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| Britannic left Southampton bound for Murdos on November 23rd, 1916. She had no passengers/injured soldiers and until she reached Murdos, her crew of Medical Corps, Nurces, Surgeons, Doctors and the other crew members and officers had very little to do but wander the giant ship. On Tuesday the 23rd of November at 8:12 am, the ship gave a shudder and literally danced for a moment before continuing on her way. Nurse Violet Jessop's instincts told her the ship was doomed. She was calm though. She had been in disaster before. She was a stewardess on Olympic when she was rammed by the British warship HMS Hawke, and was again a stewardess on Titanic's fateful maiden voyage. The ship had struck something between for forcastle and well deck with a great explosion. On the Bridge, Captain Bartlett ordered a damage check. The report was alarming. The explosion had occured between holds two and three, but also damaged in the explosion was the bulkhead between compartment two and one and the forecastle. Now her forst four compartments were filling rapidly. To make matters worse, the watertight door in the fireman's tunnel between boiler room 6 and the fireman's quarters was damaged, and the watertight door between boiler rooms 6 and 5 didn't close all the way. Water was now flooding into the first six compartments, in theory, the maximum amount before the ship foundered. Bartlett ordered the lifeboats prepared and a wireless ditsress message sent out. He was trying to decide on the next step to take in order to save his ship. Only 10 minutes after the explosion, Britannic was in the same state Titanic was in an hour after the collison with the iceberg. 15 minutes after the explosion, water had risin to E deck and was at the portholes. Whats worse, the nurses had left them open to air out the wards before collecting passengers. Water flowed into the dry boiler room 4. Now with seven compartments flooding, Britannic was doomed. She had developed a sharp list to starboard in the time after the collision. Captain Bartlett now tried in vain to beach his ship. The Greek island of Kea was only three miles away. He ordered 'all ahead full', but the list prevented the rudder from being turned. Finally, the ship turned one way (by adding more power to one propeller than the other). At the same time, the boats were being prepared, though not lowered due to the movement of the ship. A group of firemen had comandeered a boat on the poop deck and lowered it before the ship began moving, but assistant commander Harry Dyke ordered them to pick up some people that had jumped overboard. Fifth Officer Fielding was lowering boats to some feet above the water because of the ship's movement. On the port side however, a lifeboat had been loweded into the water, only to be sucked into the massive port propeller which was just breaking the surface as it turned, still in a desperate attempt to beach the ship. Violet Jessop in boat 4 which was being lowered at the time described the scene. "...eyes were looking with unexpected horror at the debris and the red streaks all over the water.The falls of the lowered lifeboat,left hanging,could now be seen with human beings clinging to them,like flies on flypaper,holding on for dear life,with a growing fear of the certain death that awaited them if they let go." Violet's boat was not lucky either. Shortly after touching the water, her boat was being drawn towards Britannic's giant propellers. "...every man jack in the group of surrounding boats took a flying leap into the sea.They came thudding from behind and all around me,taking the water like a vast army of rats. I turned around to see the reason for this exodus and,to my horror,saw Britannic's huge propellers churning and mincing up everything near them-men,boats and everything were just one ghastly whirl". Violet thought her luck had run out. She couldn't swim, but her lifebelt brought her to the surface, only to hit her head on something hard and she began going under again. Finally she spluttered to the surface. ....."The first thing my smarting eyes beheld was a head near me,a head split open,like a sheep's head served by the butcher,the poor brains trickling over on to the khaki shoulders.All around were heart-breaking scenes of agony,poor limbs wrenched out as if some giant had torn them in his rage.The dead floated by so peacefully now,men coming up only to go down again for the last time,a look of frighteful horror on their faces." The Britannic was now sinking faster. At 8:35, realising the movement of the ship would only sink Britannic quicker, Captain Bartlett ordered the engines stopped and gave the order to abandon ship. The forward port side welin boats were now useless, but Fifth Officer Fielding managed to launch three more boats from the aft ones. Men began throwing chairs and liferafts to the people in the water. No more boats could be launched because of the list. At 8:45am, Bartlett gave one long, last, sad, single blast of the whistle, the last order of the voyage, releasing the engineering crew still down in the bowels of the ship what had worked to heroicly like their counterparts on the Titanic 4 years earlier. They escaped through the ladders in the fourth dummy funnel used for ventilation. Bartlett now walked from the bridge directly into water and swam to an empty collapsible. One can imagine the sadness in his eyes. Britannic was his ship. He had watched her grow in the Belfast Gantries and now she was on her way to the bottom. He sat down to watch her last moments. She rolled onto her side and her funnels began to collapse. "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." Britannic was gone, only 55 minutes after th explosion. It was 9:07am, and in the warm waters of the Aegen Sea. What caused the explosion? Many people beleive it was a mine, though some people had sworn that they had seen a torpedo track before the explosion. A mine laying German ship had been through the area before hand. It is likely that a mine from this ship destroyed Britannic. At 8:15, the destroyer Scourge heard Britannic's distress call and raced to the scene. On the way, she ordered the French tugs Goliath and Polyphemus to follow. At 8:28, the auxillary cruiser Heroic heard the calls and raced to the scene. Also called upon was the destroyer Foxhound. It was a warm morning in the Aegean Sea and the water was warm and full of debris, lifeboats, swimmers and corpses. 35 boats had been launched into the calm water. The two motor launches picked up many survivors, including Violet Jessop, who had a fractured skull and a deep cut in her leg. While on the motor launch, she saw several people being pulled from the water. "Several did not respond.Here a poor scullion with his apron still on,there a RAMC orderly,now a wee,fair-haired sailor boy.I looked on miserably as the order was given to drop them overboard again and saw them floating away." Of the 1066 abaord, only 30 people had died, most, if not all of them from the still chirning propellers. The 'Last Titan' and 'Forgotten Sister' was gone. Had she been loaded with the wounded, the death toll would have been much higher, possibly more than Titanic's. She would lie untouched for 60 years until her discovery in 1976, the largest sunken ship in history. |
| Casualty |
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| Violet Jessop |
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| Captain Charles Bartlett |
| Please Note: This page has very graphic detail on the death of 30 lives. Parental supervision is advised for children under 12. |
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