RMS Olympic by Mark Chirnside

Author:Mark Chirnside [Chirnside, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750963480
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2015-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

In the midst of war, here was a glimpse of apparent peace; and the pertinent question as to whether peaceful competition – on land, sea and in the air – was preferable to the guns, deaths and fighting which were unavoidable in war.

By the time of her 24 April 1918 Southampton departure, Olympic was steaming on her twenty-second troop-carrying round voyage. Good luck followed her when warnings of nearby U-boats initially appeared unfounded. However, a day out of Southampton one of the escorting destroyers on the port bow hoisted a signal indicating that they had spotted a submarine. Then Second Officer Freeman sighted the submarine from Olympic’s port bridge wing. Firing on the U-boat – which had two periscopes – the escorting destroyers then attacked, although it was impossible to claim a definite ‘kill’. Pilot George Bowyer, who had not been able to get off the ship as per the usual routine, was described by Captain Hayes as looking ‘anxious’. Fortunately, the remainder of the first leg of the voyage proved uneventful as Olympic cleaved through the Atlantic at full speed. By 6 May 1918 she was leaving New York with a full complement of American soldiers.20 The return crossing, eastbound, was to be the most eventful of the entire war.

Captain Claus Rücker had been in command of the U103 for nine months by May 1918. Constructed by A.G. Weser in Bremen from 8 August 1916, the U-boat had been launched in early June 1917. Her career was relatively successful, sinking no fewer than eight ships (excluding warships) during her brief service life, for a grand total of 22,249 gross tons.*21 At this stage in the war the submarines were targeting troopers bringing Allied, including Canadian and American troops, across to France, in an effort to relieve the burden on the German Army. The U-boat left Wilhelmshaven on 28 April 1918, putting in at Heligoland for several days while she awaited her escort; it was not until the afternoon of the third day of May that she began her patrol with the U70. She narrowly escaped two ‘well-aimed bombs’ which ‘exploded uncomfortably close to her, though without causing any damage’. By the morning of 12 May 1918, U103 was in the English Channel and about to encounter a superior adversary, in the form of the war’s most successful troopship and the only passenger liner to sink an enemy submarine during the war. Her navigating warrant officer sighted a black patch on the horizon on the port side at 4.37 am ship’s time (one hour behind Olympic’s clocks), and as it came closer he noticed a destroyer ahead of the four-funnelled merchantman, which was 2,000 yards away. Initially those aboard the submarine did not identify the massive steamer as Olympic, and Captain Rücker arrived to take charge of the vessel – ordering the stern torpedo tubes to be readied for firing. Unfortunately for Rücker, there was some delay in readying the torpedo tubes, and the submarine was well within torpedo range before she was ready to make an attack.

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