Exploring the Wreckage of the Britannic (the Titanic’s Sister Ship) and Discovering Why It Sunk in 50 Minutes

History Unplugged Podcast

The RMS Titanic is history’s most famous shipwreck, but it wasn’t the only ship of its kind. The White Star Line built two other nearly identical vessels: The RMS Olympic and Britannic. The Olympic carried passengers until 1935 and can be visited today. The Brittanic sank only four years after her sister ship the Titanic off the Greek island of Kea in the Aegean Sea like due to striking a German mine while serving as a hospital ship during World War One. It sank in only 55 minutes (compared to 160 minutes for the Titanic) but only 30 of the 1066 passengers due to better lifeboat procedures, warmer waters, and being closer to land.

What

While the wreck of the Titanic is 2 miles below the surface and rapidly deteriorating, the Britannic is much more accessible (only 400ft down) and remains largely intact. It’s in “shallow” enough waters that divers can reach it, although submersibles do most of the investigation work. What can the ship tell us about the sinking of the Titanic, the lives of its passengers in the early 20th century, and whether something nefarious happened that caused it to sink, as some claim (like German sabotage).

These are the questions that today’s guest, Simon Mills, tried to answer when bought the wreck of the Britannic in 1996. He is a maritime historian who has coordinated multiple expeditions into the underwater wreckage and most recently finished extensive internal surveys in 2021 and 2023. He’s also the author of the new book Inside the Britannic which is the sum of decades of work covering every inch of the ship. We discuss exactly how this ship sunk, what happened during the frantic 50 minutes of its sinking, what happened to the survivors, and other unanswered mysteries.

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