Epilogue

The Daily Mirror

23 November 1916

Hospital ship sunk by torpedoes;

53 dead, count rising

London, Thursday, Nov. 23, 1916—In a terrible tragedy and affront to Her Majesty’s government, HMHS Britannic has been sunk on November 21 by German mines off the island of Kea in the Aegean Sea, according to the Daily Mirror’s Athens correspondent. The ship was hit and began to take on water at 8:12 a.m. and reportedly sank within the hour. It is believed that two German submarines were positioned in the Kea Channel in waiting for the famous hospital ship, sister ship to the tragic RMS Titanic and the largest hospital ship in the British fleet. This latest German outrage against humanity is all the worse for knowing that the ship, heading north, had not yet taken on its full complement of wounded soldiers, so mainly noncombatants—doctors, nurses, and crew—were on board.

Survivors reported that the ship sank very quickly, with an hour elapsing in total from when the ship began evacuation proceedings to when it slipped beneath the water. Because of the quickness, not all lifeboats were able to deploy in time and this is partly blamed for the loss of life. Survivors credit the relatively limited loss of life—only 53 unaccounted for at this time—to the sounding of the alarms by someone on the bridge just as the mines were struck. Without the alarm bells, survivors agree, the loss of life would’ve certainly been higher, perhaps even approaching the catastrophic levels of the sister ship. The ship is believed to have been carrying approximately 100 doctors, 200 nurses, and 200 crew, in addition to about 500 wounded picked up in Naples, Italy. The ship, which is fitted to carry up to 3,000, was en route to pick up another 1,000 wounded in Mudros when it was struck.

Our correspondent spoke to one of the survivors, nurse Violet Jessop, who had also been on the Titanic when it sank. She reported that in comparison, the sinking of the Britannic was more violent. “There was a great explosion, then a second one. The ship rocked like a toy boat in a child’s bath. We were all in the mess hall for daily service, and ran up to the boat deck. That’s when we were told we were sinking and to man the lifeboats.” Miss Jessop found she was not clear of the horror, however, when her lifeboat was drawn in by one of the ship’s massive propeller blades, stuck up out of the water. She had to jump to keep from being killed, hit her head, and nearly drowned.

“Someone hoisted me out of the water. I don’t recall a thing,” she said of the harrowing experience, “except that I heard a woman screaming from inside the Britannic as it was going down. At the time, I thought that was impossible, as they’d surely evacuated the women first, but later I found out that one of the nurses was unaccounted for, and it was all the worse for being one of my dearest friends, Annie Hebbley.”

Due to the angle of the explosions, all those in and near the captain’s bridge died on impact.

The captain has made claims it was a miracle that he was conducting Mass at just that moment, and thus survived.