On November, 12th, 1916, the Britannic departed Southampton, Britain, for the island of Lemnos, Greece. It made some stops on the way but, in general, everything went as usual. On November, 16th, 1916, at 8 a.m., while the ship was sailing between Kea and Cape Sounion, in the Aegean Sea, a loud explosion was heard. The ship had hit a submerged mine at about 10 feet below the waterline. The doctors and nurses reacted immediately and put the passengers into the safety boats.
The Britannic sunk very quickly, in 55 minutes actually! The explosion had opened a big hole of about 20 and 30 feet in size and much water was coming into the vessel. Besides, it is possible that the ship suffered a second explosion, provoked by gas fumes. However, the most crucial point was that the crew had opened the portholes to air out the rooms where the 3,600 wounded men from Lemnos would be put. This allowed the water to enter faster.
The fishermen of Kea were the first to arrive at the spot and pick up the survivors. Two ships also came to rescue the passengers in the lifeboats. In overall, 1,036 people were saved and thirty people lost their lives, while about twenty others were injured. Some survivors were transferred to the port of Piraeus, Athens, while others were offered hospitality by the people of Kea and stayed in Korissia village for a few days.
The first person to discover the wreck of HMHS Britannic was Jacques Cousteau in 1975 and intended to turn the Britannic into the first underwater museum in the world. In August 1996, the sunken Britannic was sold to Mr Simon Mills, a maritime historian who had written two books about its wreck. Many expeditions are still organized to reveal the mystery around the wreck of this ship, which followed her sister’s fate: it sunk although it was built to be unsinkable, just like Titanic!
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