I’m Paul DuVall, and you’re watching 11 Bone-Chilling Britannic Facts.
Ready or not, let’s dive in.
Starting us off at number eleven, in 1975, French oceanographer, Jacques Cousteau was
invited by the Greek Ministry of Tourism to search for possible underwater remains of
the mythical city of Atlantis in the Aegean Sea.
During the mission he came in contact with the Titanic Historical Society who asked him
to look for the wreck of the Britannic.
While his search for Atlantis proved to be unsuccessful, on November 13, 1975, something
very large appeared on sonar.
They’d found it.
And unlike the Titanic wreck, which was over 12,000 feet down, the surprisingly intact
Britannic wreck lay only 400 feet below the surface.
To put this in perspective, the sheer length of the 883-foot-long Britannic meant that
as she was sinking, her bow actually hit the sea floor while her stern was still above
the surface.
Now let’s take it back to 1912.
Following news of the Titanic tragedy, it should come as no surprise that demand for
transatlantic travel sank significantly, forcing the Britannic’s builders to make several
notable modifications during the construction of Britannic to increase safety measures.
More lifeboats were added, making the total number of lifeboats equal to 48 in comparison
to Titanic’s 20 lifeboats.
Other major changes included the introduction of a double hull along the engine and boiler
rooms and raising six out of the 15 watertight bulkheads up to B Deck.
A more obvious external change was the fitting of large crane-like davits, each capable of
holding six lifeboats, making the Britannic an even safer ship in theory.
Next up at number nine, did you know the Britannic was the largest ship lost in World War I?
While her sister ship, the Olympic was designated by the British Admiralty as a troop transport
ship, the Britannic was requisitioned as a hospital ship.
She was freshly painted in the internationally recognized hospital ship colors, a white hull,
highlighted by a green band and large red crosses.
Inside the luxurious fittings were replaced with basic hospital interiors, and the venerable
Captain Charles Bartlett was given command of the ship.
After completing five successful voyages to the Middle Eastern theatre and back to the
United Kingdom, she was on her sixth voyage to pick up wounded soldiers, when at 08:12
a.m. on November 21st, 1916, a loud explosion shook the ship.
The cause, whether it was a torpedo from an enemy submarine or a mine, was not immediately
apparent, but what was apparent was that she was sinking fast.
Now, four years earlier on the Titanic, Captain Smith had had the benefit of a much slower
rate of flooding, along with the invaluable advice of designer Thomas Andrews to help
him formulate a plan of action.
Captain Bartlett had no such luxury.
And in less than one hour, Great Britain’s largest and finest ship had sunk to her premature
watery grave.
30 were dead or missing, but had the explosion occurred on the return journey, with the ship’s
wards packed full of thousands of sick and wounded, the potential number of killed or
injured would have been astronomically higher.
And at number eight, in an all-out panic to get off the sinking ship, crew members hastily
lowered two lifeboats against Captain Bartlett’s orders near the stern of the ship.
No sooner did the boats hit the water than a strong tide carried them directly into the
Britannic’s port propeller, which was still spinning at a dangerous speed.
These two boats were smashed into pieces by the propeller, and the people in them were
either badly mutilated or killed.
Take a look at this eerie photo, where you can see the very same propeller that took
the lives of these helpless people.
Now a stewardess in one of these ill-fated boats was carried completely around the propeller,
and beyond a few cuts and bruises and her clothes almost torn off, she was not severely
injured.
This lucky stewardess was none other than Violet Constance Jessop, which leads us right
into bone-chilling fact number seven.
Violet was already quite familiar with sinking ships, as she had survived the Titanic sinking
only four years prior, and I’m sure the 29-year-old British stewardess had some choice
words to say in the matter as she gathered her coat, ring, clock and even a bread roll
from the breakfast table.
Recalling how much she had missed having a toothbrush on the Carpathia after the Titanic
had gone down, she also made absolutely sure that this time she would not make the same
mistake.
Like I was saying a moment ago, Violet was one of the passengers on the ill-fated lifeboats.
In spite of all her years at sea, Violet had never actually learned how to swim, but she
knew that she either had to jump out of the lifeboat or be chopped into pieces by the
propeller.
She leapt overboard and nearly drowned, suffering a head injury in the process, but somehow
found her way back to the surface and was pulled into another lifeboat, cheating death
once again.
Next over at number six, after surrendering at the end of World War I, Germany was forced
under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles to hand over some of its ocean liners as war
reparations, two of which were given to the White Star Line.
The ship that was given to replace the Britannic was the SS Bismarck, which was the largest
ship in the world at the time.
Interestingly, the Bismarck wasn’t even fully completed yet, and German builders had
to finish her construction before handing her off to the British.
Salty German shipyard workers even attempted to sabotage the Bismarck, setting her on fire,
and badly damaging her in the process.
The ship's handover was understandably tense.
And when the British arrived, they found their quarters incomplete, whereas their German
colleagues' cabins were finished perfectly.
In the case of British Captain Hayes, his temporary quarters were being used to store
wash basins.
The White Star Line renamed the SS Bismarck to RMS Majestic, and upon arrival in Southampton,
she became the flagship of the White Star Line fleet and proved to be extremely popular
during the 1920s.
And at number five, while the Titanic had an orchestra, the White Star Line’s plans
for the Britannic’s musical entertainment were on a whole new level of grandiose.
A philharmonic pipe organ was set to be installed on board the Britannic but because of the
outbreak of the war, the instrument never made its way to Belfast from Germany.
After the war ended, the organ wasn't claimed by the Britannic’s builders since the Britannic
sank before she ever entered transatlantic service.
It also wasn't installed on the Olympic or the Majestic since the White Star Line didn't
want it, perhaps due to the fact that it was manufactured in Germany.
After this, the organ disappeared for nearly a century and was thought to be lost or destroyed.
However, in April 2007, the restorers of a Welte Philharmonic pipe organ detected
that all the major parts of the instrument were signed by German organ builders with
the inscription, "Britanik".
And upon further investigation, it was proven that this was in fact the organ originally
intended for the Britannic.
This beautiful piece of history can currently be heard playing in The Museum of Music Automatons
in Switzerland.
Up next at number four, whispers about artifacts taken from the Britannic by Jacques Cousteau
had echoed across generations of divers, with much speculation surrounding the ship’s
bell.
The bell is the heart of a ship.
It signals the watch, rings for ceremonies, and of course sounds the alarm.
The bell sounded on the Britannic to signal all on board that the
ship would soon sink.
It was likely the last man made sound anyone heard before the sea swallowed her in a thunderous
clap.
Bells are the highest prize for shipwreck hunters, and this one, the bell of Titanic’s
sister ship would have been a crown jewel for an explorer like Cousteau.
Some said Cousteau raised the bell and kept it in his private collection.
Others said he took it to a museum in Athens or elsewhere in the world.
Cousteau was silent on the subject.
Did Cousteau raise the ship’s bell and hide it away?
Finally, in 2019, the mystery of the missing bell was solved, when divers found the bell,
which had fallen from the mast and now lay directly below the crow’s nest on the seabed.
And for bone-chilling fact number three, in 1996 the wreck of the Britannic was purchased
by British oceanographer Simon Mills for 15,000 pounds from the UK government.
When asked why he bought the Britannic, his response was, “I haven’t the faintest
idea!
The only justification I could think of at the time was that I was single, had a well-paid
job and had money to spare.”
Seems like a good enough reason to me, but his father didn’t seem to think so.
When he found out what Simon had just purchased, his response was, “You’ve done what?”
Coming down to number two, so what actually sank the Britannic?
In a 2003 expedition into the wreck, divers brought back some of the first photographs
from inside the wreck and found that several watertight doors were wide open, leading experts
to the conclusion that either the explosion coincided with the change of watches, or the
blast may have distorted the doorframes.
A number of mine anchors were located off the wreck by sonar expert Bill Smith, confirming
the German records of U-73 that the Britannic was sunk by a single mine and the damage was
compounded by open portholes and watertight doors.
And at number one, perhaps one of the grimmer moments in Britannic’s recent history occurred
during a May 2009 expedition of the shipwreck.
Sunday, May 24th began as another typical sunny and tranquil day, and at 12:56pm, the
last diver Carl Spencer dipped below the surface en route to the wreck.
All seemed to be going according to plan, until another diver noticed something was
wrong.
Carl not only looked very uncomfortable in the water, but the sight of so many bubbles
immediately above him suggested that he was no longer on his rebreather and had instead
switched to his open-circuit bailout cylinders.
More concerning was the fact that Carl was coming up fast – too fast.
A fellow diver came to his aid and helped slow his ascent.
But at 40 meters, Carl switched over to a new cylinder and immediately began to convulse,
forcing the support divers to rush him to the surface.
He sadly died moments later, and it was soon discovered that Carl had incorrectly marked
that last cylinder as “air” when in fact it contained a Nitrox 50 gas mix.
Breathing this gas mix at a depth of 40 meters would very quickly have subjected any diver
to a condition known as central nervous system toxicity, whereby the partial pressure of
oxygen rises to a potentially lethal level in the human body.
This one mistake proved to be fatal, and the rest of the expedition was suspended following
the accident.
I’m Paul DuVall.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the future.