­It’s November 18, 1929, and you’re a passenger aboard Olympic, Titanic’s older
sister. A crew member across the room remarks that you’re passing over the spot where
Titanic sank, and the next moment the entire ship begins to shake violently. Yup. That
happened. We’ll get to that in a moment, but this was not even Olympic’s first bizarre
encounter.
Launched on October 20, 1910, the RMS Olympic was White Star Line’s monumental response
to rival Cunard line’s Lusitania and Mauretania. And what a response she was. The first of
the three Olympic-class Ocean liners, there was no doubt she was built to impress. What
she lacked in speed, she more than made up for in sheer size, at almost 100 feet longer,
30 feet taller, and nearly 14,000 more gross register tons than her rivals, easily earning
her the title of largest ship in the world.
The Olympic began her maiden voyage from Southampton on June 14, 1911, with Captain John Smith
at the helm and designer Thomas Andrews on board to observe ship operations. Two men
who would go on to become household names only 10 months later. After an uneventful
maiden voyage, she arrived in New York one week later and was opened up to the public
while docked, drawing over 8,000 curious visitors. This is how I’d imagine Titanic’s arrival
to New York would have been. Surprisingly, Olympic’s voyages remained mostly uneventful
until a particularly smashing encounter, and I don’t mean smashing in the good sense
like you smashing the like button right now.
On the crisp and clear autumn morning of September 20, 1911, Olympic had just left Southampton
on her fifth voyage when another ship began running parallel to her. That ship, the HMS
Hawke, had actually been designed to sink other ships by ramming into them. What happened
next shocked the crews of both ships. Without warning, Olympic, which was being manned by
an unnamed harbor pilot, suddenly turned hard to starboard. The crew of HMS Hawke had no
time to react and watched in horror as the bow of their ship plunged deep into Olympic’s
starboard side. The impact tore two giant holes in Olympic’s hull, flooding two of
her watertight compartments. The Hawke’s bow was rendered nonexistent in the collision.
Both ships managed to limp back to port for repair, but perhaps the most unfortunate conclusion
White Star Line took from this incident was that it “proved” Olympic and her sister
ships were “unsinkable.” If they only knew.
Not only was White Star Line required to pay
for the damages, but Titanic, which was still under construction, had to lend one of her
propeller shafts to her older sister. Titanic also lent a propeller blade to Olympic after
she lost one on a return trip from New York, delaying Titanic’s maiden voyage three weeks,
from March 20 to April 10, 1912.
And what a day that was. All eyes shifted from Olympic to her shiny new not so little
sister. Olympic was no longer the largest ship in the world. That title now belonged
to Titanic, and with Captain John Smith at the helm, this was sure to be another one
for the books. Now White Star Line would have not one but two Olympic class superliners
making the popular trans-Atlantic journey.
And as the world awaited the news of Titanic’s successful maiden voyage and arrival to New
York, Olympic was herself returning from the city that never sleeps. Cause we all know
if you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere. Unfortunately, Titanic could not
make it there. And on April 14, 1912, Olympic, now under the command of Captain Herbert Haddock,
received the distress call from Titanic: S.O.S. Olympic, which was 500 nautical miles west
by south of Titanic’s location, quickly fired up her boilers and roared to life, racing
at a rate of over 25 knots, a speed she’d rarely reached before. The two ships traded
messages for less than an hour before Titanic grew radio silent. As Olympic’s wireless
operator frantically reached out, a new message broke the silence. This one from another ship,
the Carpathia: “The Titanic has sunk.” All remaining survivors were now aboard Carpathia.
But when Olympic offered to take on the survivors, she was heatedly turned down due
to concern that it would cause panic among the survivors of the disaster to see a virtual
mirror-image of the Titanic appear and ask them to board. So Olympic carried on to her
original destination of Southampton.
And speaking of being a virtual mirror image of Titanic, Olympic was now the subject of
intense scrutiny, as everything from her lifeboats, watertight doors, bulkheads, and other equipment
was virtually identical to Titanic. She even participated in sea tests to establish how
quickly she could turn at various speeds to approximate how long it would have taken Titanic
to turn after the iceberg was sighted.
And on October 9, 1912, following a strike due to a lack of proper lifeboats as well
as a public fear of sailing, White Star withdrew Olympic from service to give her a much-needed
safety makeover. The number of lifeboats on Olympic was increased from twenty to sixty-eight,
and extra davits were installed to accommodate them. An inner watertight skin was also constructed
in the boiler and engine rooms, which created a double hull. Five of the watertight bulkheads
were extended up to B-Deck, extending to the entire height of the hull. This corrected
a flaw in the original design, in which the bulkheads only rose as far as E or D-Deck,
a short distance above the waterline. This flaw had been exposed during Titanic's sinking,
where water spilled over the top of the bulkheads as the ship sank and flooded subsequent compartments.
These modifications meant that Olympic could survive a collision like that of Titanic and
remain afloat.
We are at war (broadcast maybe?)
On August 4, 1914, Britain officially entered the first world war. At first, Olympic continued
her commercial service. She was painted in the grey color scheme, portholes were blocked,
and lights on deck were turned off to make her less visible to enemy ships. The first
few wartime voyages were packed with Americans trapped in Europe, eager to return home. However,
the eastbound journeys back to Europe understandably carried few passengers. By mid-October, bookings
had fallen sharply as the threat from German U-boats became increasingly serious, and White
Star Line decided to withdraw Olympic from commercial service.
On October 21, 1914, Olympic left New York
for Glasgow on her last commercial voyage of the war, carrying a measly 153 passengers.
For a ship that could comfortably accommodate over 2,400 passengers, I’d imagine it felt
like a ghost town, or should I say ghost ship. Unbeknownst to them, that extra space was
about to come in clutch. You see, six days later Olympic had just passed Lough Swilly
off the north coast of Ireland, when she received distress signals from the British battleship,
HMS Audacious, which had struck a mine off Tory Island and was taking on water. Olympic
arrived on the scene, quickly taking on 250 of Audacious’s crew. A tow cable was then
attached between Audacious and Olympic, so the wounded ship could be rushed to a nearby
harbor. Unfortunately, the cable gave way, and the rest of Audacious’s crew members
were forced to evacuate to Olympic. A short time later Audacious exploded and sank. Admiral
Sir John Jellicoe, Commander of the Home Fleet, was anxious to suppress the news of the sinking
of Audacious, for fear of the demoralizing effect it could have on the British public,
so he ordered Olympic to be held in custody at Lough Swilly. No communications were permitted,
and Olympic’s passengers were not allowed to leave the ship for six days. Yeah, I’d
be calling corporate after that.
After Olympic returned to Britain, the White Star Line intended to lay her up in Belfast
and wait out the war, but in May 1915, she was requisitioned by the Admiralty to be used
as a troop transport ship. If you feel large ocean liners like Olympic were a bad choice
for transporting troops through U-boat infested waters, you wouldn’t be alone. The Admiralty
was initially reluctant to use Olympic, because of her vulnerability to enemy attack, however
a shortage of ships gave them no choice. Olympic’s youngest sister ship Britannic, which had
not yet been completed, was requisitioned as a hospital ship.
Olympic was given the full military makeover,
armed with 12-pounders and 4.7-inch guns, with the capacity to transport up to 6,000
troops. Now under the command of Captain Bertram Fox Hayes, it didn’t take long for Olympic
to find trouble. On October 1, 1915, she was on her first troop transport mission to the
Greek town of Mudros when she happened upon lifeboats from the French ship Provincia which
had been sunk by a U-boat that morning. Olympic stopped and rescued 34 survivors, much to
the chagrin of the British Admiralty, who accused Captain Hayes of putting the ship
in danger by stopping her in waters where enemy U-boats were active. Of course, the
French Vice-Admiral took a different view, and awarded Hayes with the Gold Medal of Honour.
But Olympic’s time in the war wasn’t just
brimming with wins. There were serious losses too. November 21, 1916 was a particularly
dark day for Olympic. Her younger sister Britannic was en route to pick up wounded troops in
the Middle Eastern theatre when she struck an underwater mine and sank. I cover this
in more detail on my video 11 Bone-Chilling Britannic Facts, but this video is about Olympic,
and now, she was the last of the Olympic class ships with both of her younger sisters gone.
In 1917, she underwent another makeover, gaining
6-inch guns and painted with the "dazzle" camouflage scheme. Her dazzle colors were
brown, dark blue, light blue, and white. The dazzle paint scheme is credited to Norman
Wilkinson, a British marine artist whose geometric patterns made a ship’s size, number and
heading difficult for enemy ships to discern. You’ve probably already seen Norman’s
work and didn’t even realize it. Remember the famous Plymouth Harbour painting in Titanic’s
first-class smoking room? The one Thomas Andrews was staring at as Titanic sank? Yup. Norman
painted that too.
1917 was quite the eventful year, as World War I would reach its climax, with the United
States declaring war on Germany, and Olympic became a familiar face for American troops
as she transported thousands of “doughboys” to Britain. It was during one of these transport
missions that Olympic achieved what is no doubt the most epic moment of her career.
In the early hours of May 12, 1918, Olympic was on the English Channel en route to France
when she sighted a surfacing U-boat dead ahead. The SM U-103 had already sank eight other
ships, and Olympic was soon to be number nine. At least, that’s what the crew of U-103
thought. Olympic’s crew immediately sprang to action, firing upon U-103 as Olympic turned
to ram the submarine. U-103 crash dived, but in the process, Olympic’s port propeller
sliced through her pressure hull, forcing the U-103’s crew to blow her ballast tanks,
scuttle and abandon the submarine. Olympic didn’t even stop and just kept going like
one of those action movie heroes.
The war ended six months later, and Olympic was reported to have carried 201,000 troops
and other personnel, burning 347,000 tons of coal and travelling 184,000 miles. Her
war service earned her the nickname Old Reliable, and she underwent a refit in Belfast to restore
her to civilian service in 1919. Perhaps the most significant piece of this makeover was
the conversion of her boilers from coal burning to oil firing. This modification reduced the
refueling time from days to hours, gave a steadier engine R.P.M. and allowed the engine
room personnel to be reduced from 350 to 60 people.
And she still had a lot of life left in her.
During the 1920s, Olympic remained a popular and fashionable ship, and often attracted
the rich and famous of the day. Marie Curie, Charlie, Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks,
and Prince Edward were among the celebrities that she proudly carried. One of the attractions
of Olympic was the fact that she was nearly identical to Titanic, and many passengers
sailed on Olympic as a way of vicariously experiencing the voyage of her sister ship.
And it was on one of these Titanic-inspired
voyages on November 18, 1929, that she was passing over the very place where Titanic
sank. No doubt the anxiety of Olympic’s crew and passengers was already heightened
here, and for good reason. So, imagine their shock when the entire ship began to shake
violently from bow to stern. I don’t know about you, but I’d be thinking, “Well
this is it. This is how I’m going to go.” Unbeknownst to those aboard Olympic, they
were actually passing over the epicenter of a 7.2 magnitude undersea earthquake. The earthquake
was felt as far away as New York, Boston, and Halifax. Not only that, but it caused
an underwater landslide of sediment that had been building for centuries, reshaping ocean
trenches, shifting shipwrecks, and triggering a tsunami that would kill 28 people in Newfoundland.
Bizarre coincidence or something deeper? Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. And
though Olympic made it through this shaking, there was a much greater shaking on the horizon
in which she would not fare so well.
In a moment, you’re going to see the last known photo of Olympic, but first the Great
Depression hit every aspect of the world’s economy, and the shipping trade was no exception.
Until 1930, Olympic had averaged around 1,000 passengers per journey, but this declined
by more than half in 1932. At the same time, a new generation of larger and faster liners
had emerged, and passengers tended to prefer these more up-to-date ships over their decades
old competitors. The White Star Line gave Olympic an overhaul and refit, but it wasn’t
enough. Olympic experienced her worst year of business in 1933, carrying just over 9,000
passengers and running at a net operating loss for the first time, and in 1934 with
the merging of White Star Line and competitor Cunard Line, Olympic was withdrawn from transatlantic
service, and left New York for the last time on April 5, 1935. She had completed 257 round
trips across the Atlantic, transporting 430,000 passengers on her commercial voyages, and
travelling 1.8 million miles.
She had served her country well, and with another world war just around the corner,
there is little doubt that given the opportunity she would have served with honor and distinction
once again. Instead, she found herself being torn apart in a scrapyard. This is believed
to be the last known photo of the beloved Olympic, gone but not forgotten. I’m Paul
DuVall, thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the future.