A Nice Quiet Life: The life of a Merchant Seaman through two World Wars by Alfred H Burlinson

Author:Alfred H Burlinson [Burlinson, Alfred H]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-12-05T08:00:00+00:00

The Britannic

My leave was cut short to just five days leave, I had a message to say I was being appointed to HM Hospital Ship “Britannic”, a half finished affair, rigged as best they could, to be a big hospital. We went to Naples first to fill up with coal which cost £8 a ton. Then on to a harbour in Sicily, where we took aboard the wounded, the staffs and stores of five hospital ships; then at top speed back home to Southampton, and finally on to Belfast where she was laid up.

HMHS Britannic was the third and largest Olympic class ocean liner of the White Star Line. She was the sister ship of RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic, and was intended to enter service as a transatlantic passenger liner. She was launched just before the start of the First World War and was laid up at her builders in Belfast for many months before being put to use as a hospital ship in 1915. In that role she was shaken by an explosion, caused either by a torpedo or an underwater mine, in the Kea Channel off the Greek island of Kea on the morning of 21 November 1916, and sank with the loss of 30 lives.

There were a total of 1,066 people on board, with 1,036 survivors taken from the water and lifeboats, roughly an hour later, at 9:07 AM, the ship sank. In spite of Britannic being the biggest ship lost during the First World War, her sinking was not as tragic in terms of loss of human life as were the sinking of RMS Titanic and Cunard's RMS Lusitania.

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