Qualla: HMHS Britannic

HMHS Britannic: Introduction

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Captain Dayrell Davies (1856 – 1937), Public domain. She never carried a paying passenger. The ship launched in Belfast on 26 February 1914, designed to be the finest and safest of the three Olympic-class liners — more spacious than Titanic, with better lifeboats, stronger bulkheads, wider gantry davits. By the time she was complete, Europe was at war, and she was requisitioned before she could enter commercial service. Repainted white with red crosses and a green stripe, renamed His Majesty's Hospital Ship Britannic, she spent just over a year carrying wounded soldiers out of the Dardanelles theatre. In the early morning of 21 November 1916, in the Kea Channel between Cape Sounion and the island of Kea, she struck a mine laid by a German submarine. Fifty-five minutes later, she was gone. Of the 1,066 people aboard — nurses, doctors, orderlies, officers, and crew — thirty died. The 1,036 who survived owed their lives, in part, to each other.

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Image: Captain Dayrell Davies (1856 – 1937) | Public domain

HMHS Britannic: Built for Peace, Requisitioned for War

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Olympic-class programme began in 1907 with a simple ambition: to build the three largest, most luxurious liners afloat. Olympic came first, then Titanic. Britannic, the youngest, was still under construction when the Titanic sank in April 1912. The disaster forced a redesign....

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

HMHS Britannic: Six Voyages

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AnonymousUnknown author, Public domain. Between late 1915 and November 1916, Britannic made six voyages to the eastern Mediterranean, running between Southampton and the Greek island of Lemnos (the staging point for Dardanelles operations), stopping at Naples to take on coal. Life aboard followed a strict routine. Pati...

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Image: AnonymousUnknown author | Public domain

HMHS Britannic: The Morning of 21 November

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. A storm had slowed the ship at Naples. Captain Charles Bartlett pushed on through a break in the weather. By the small hours of 21 November, the seas had calmed. Britannic rounded Cape Matapan and entered the Kea Channel at full speed, steaming northeast toward Lemnos. At 8:12 in...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

HMHS Britannic: The Thirty Who Did Not Come Home

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dr. John Cropper - 1914/16, Public domain. By 8:50, thirty-five lifeboats had been launched and most of those aboard were in them. Bartlett, thinking the flooding had slowed, ordered the engines restarted in one last attempt to reach the shallows near Kea. The forward motion forced more water in. By 9:00 he knew the ship ...

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Image: Dr. John Cropper - 1914/16 | Public domain

HMHS Britannic: What Lies Below

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pitichinaccio, CC BY 3.0. Britannic rests today on the seabed of the Kea Channel at about 400 feet, lying on her starboard side. Jacques Cousteau located and explored her in 1975 and returned the following year to enter the wreck. Robert Ballard visited in 1995. In 1996, maritime historian Simon Mills — w...

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Image: Pitichinaccio | CC BY 3.0