The Britannic ... This ship was the third and final vessel of the White Star Line's ... Olympic Class Steamships ... and the second White Star ship to be named Britannic ... She was the youngest of the 3 sister ships ... Britannic ... Olympic ... and ... Titanic ... They were all intended to enter service as a Transatlantic Passenger Liner ... However,
... Because of the First World War ... she was operated as a ... Hospital Ship ... from 1915 until ... Her Sinking near the Greek island of Kea in the Aegean Sea on November 1916 ... At the time, The Britannic was the Largest Hospital Ship in the world ... Britannic was Launched on February 26, 1916. She was designed to be the safest of the three sister ships because of design changes made during construction due to lessons learned from ... The Sinking of the Titanic ... She was laid up at her builders Harland and Wolff Garland and Wolff in Belfast for many months before being requisitioned as a ... Hospital Ship ... In 1915 and 1916 she served between the United Kingdom and the Dardannes. On the morning of 21 November 1916 she was shaken by an explosion caused by a Naval Mine of the Imperial German Navy near the Greek island of Kea ... The Britannic Sank 55 minutes Later ... 30 People were killed ... There were 1,066 people on board ... 1036 survivors were saved and rescued from being in the the water by wearing life jackets, and others were able to board the Lifeboats ... Britannic ... was the largest ship lost in the First World War. After the war the White Star Line was compensated for the loss of Britannic by being awarded the SS Bismarck as part of post war reparations ... SS Bismarck re-entered service as the passenger ship with the name ... Majestic ... The wreck of the Britannic was located and explored by .. Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1975 ... The vessel is the largest intact passenger ship on the seabed in the world ... The Ship's Characteristics ... The original dimensions of the Britannic were similar to those of her older sisters, but her dimensions were altered while still on it's building stocks ... Her gross tonnage was 48,158 pounds ... She surpassed her older sisters in terms of internal volume, but this did not make her the largest passenger ship in service. At that time; the German SS Vaterland held that title with a significantly higher tonnage ... The Britannic ... was propelled by a combined system of two triple-expansion steam engines which powered the three-bladed outboard wing propellers with a low-pressure steam turbine that used steam exhausted from the two reciprocating engines to power the central four-bladed propeller achieving a maximum speed of 23 knots. In hindsight ... The Britannic sustained the exact same type of damage to her hull plating in the exact same places that the Titanic suffered on the night of April 14,1912 ... Had the ship's designers known this, The Olympic would most certainly have survived the ordeal thanks to safety modifications incorporated into her construction that were based on the British inquiry after the Titanic disaster ... The Olympic held the title of the largest British built liner until the Queen Mary was launched in 1934 ... The Olympic was withdrawn from service and sold for scrap in April, 1935. The Britannic was initially set to be named The Hellenic ...