Cold Open

It’s dawn on October 21st, 1916, in the Aegean Sea.

On board the German submarine U-73, Captain Gustav Siess climbs up a ladder through a narrow shaft. When he reaches the top, he opens a heavy hatch, and fresh air rushes in.

Captain Seiss can taste the salt on the breeze as he steps down onto the submarine’s observation deck. He takes a pair of binoculars from around his neck and scans the horizon for enemy ships.

For the last two years, Europe has been embroiled in World War One. U-73 left port two weeks ago as part of the German effort to target British shipping in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece. Now Captain Seiss’s is plotting the best way to complete his mission without the British finding out what he’s up to.

But the distant sound of guns tells Captain Seiss that his submarine has already been spotted. 

A shell lands frighteningly near. Captain Seiss whirls around with binoculars and quickly spots where the fire’s coming from: a British destroyer has appeared on the horizon.

There’s a flash as the destroyer fires another round… and this time the shell lands even closer, showering Captain Seiss with spray. He’s seen enough.

So Captain Seiss clambers back down the ladder into the submarine. It’s time for U-73 to return to the safety of the deep.

A few moments later, U-73 dives and disappears out of sight. The Royal Navy will know that an enemy submarine is in the area, but they won’t be able to stop Captain Gustav Seiss from carrying out his mission. And in exactly one month’s time, he will claim his most famous victim, when the Britannic, the sister-ship to the Titanic, is torn apart by an explosion and sinks on November 21st, 1916.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is November 21st, 1916: The Sinking of the Britannic.

Act One

It’s the morning of April 15th, 1912, at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, four years before the sinking of the Britannic.

63-year-old William Pirrie pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his running nose. Then, he takes a look at the stack of papers on his desk and sighs.

William is the chairman of Harland and Wolff. He’s been dealing with a cold for the last few days, and work has piled up in his absence. Even worse, William’s illness has meant that he’s missed out on the maiden voyage of the newest ship built at his yard. William personally handed over the luxury ocean liner Titanic to its new owner less than two weeks ago. The Titanic is the biggest ship ever built, and right now, William can't help but smirk as he knows it should be more than halfway across the Atlantic on its way to New York.

So William frowns when his secretary opens the door and rushes in without knocking. He’s about to order him out when he notices that the secretary’s face is pale and he’s clutching a telegram. William takes it from his trembling hands. But he can hardly believe what it says. The Titanic has hit an iceberg and sunk in the North Atlantic. Hundreds of lives have been lost.

William’s thoughts immediately turn to his nephew, Thomas Andrews. Thomas was on the Titanic, but he only took the ticket because William had decided he was too ill to travel himself. So stricken with guilt, William rushes into action, sending messages to Britain and America as he tries to find out more about what’s happened and who’s survived. But he soon receives the crushing news that Thomas was among those who drowned when the ship went down.

This death is a tragedy for William in more ways than one. Not only has William lost a family member, but Thomas was also Harland and Wolff’s chief designer. Now as the company faces a crisis in the aftermath of the Titanic’s sinking, William must cope without one of his most important employees.

What Thomas did leave behind, however, were his blueprints. Thomas’ designs for the Titanic are soon scrutinized by investigators trying to figure out how the unsinkable ship went down - and how to stop anything similar from happening again.

They soon conclude that when Titanic hit the iceberg, a long thin gash was cut in the side of the ship. Titanic had over a dozen watertight bulkheads, designed to stop the ship from sinking in the event of a collision. But these weren’t enough to save her in the face of such devastating damage.

The team at Harland and Wolff are especially interested in the investigators’ conclusions because a sister-ship to the Titanic is still under construction in Belfast. To give the new Britannic more protection, changes are immediately made to its design. Its hull is enveloped in a double skin of metal. And the watertight bulkheads are extended further up the ship.

Additionally, there weren’t enough lifeboats for everyone on the Titanic, and in the wake of the accident, the law is set to be changed. Now ships will have to have lifeboats for all passengers and crew. So, space is made on the Britannic’s decks for extra lifeboats, and new mechanized cranes are installed to speed their launch.

After all these changes are made, the Britannic is due to enter passenger service at the beginning of 1914. These extra safety features slow down construction of the Britannic, and the liner is still being built when World War One begins. At first, the British government insists that Harland and Wolff prioritizes military shipbuilding over civilian contracts, and the Britannic is left unfinished. But as the war spreads across multiple theaters, the British government decides it needs every vessel it can get its hands on. So, it requisitions the Britannic as a hospital ship. Common areas intended for passengers are transformed into medical wards. The first-class dining room is converted into an operating theater. And the ship’s hull is repainted white with red crosses and a green stripe, to clearly mark it as a non-combatant.

Then in December 1915, Britannic enters service with the Royal Navy—becoming the largest hospital ship in the world. Its captain is ordered to sail to the island of Lemnos in Greece. And there, the Britannic picks up Allied soldiers wounded in the Gallipoli campaign. But even though the ship is designed to carry only medical personnel and wounded soldiers, the voyage is still risky. The waters of the Mediterranean are dotted with mines, and German submarines prowl beneath the surface, ready to fire on any Allied ship they see.

So after a year of service, the Britannic will have made five trips to Lemnos and back. But it won’t complete its sixth. Instead, disaster will strike off the coast of Greece, and the Britannic will suffer the same fate as her famous sister ship: a rapid descent to the seabed.

Act Two

It’s 8:12 AM on November 21st, 1916, in the Aegean Sea, almost a year after the Britannic began service as a hospital ship.

29-year-old John Priest lifts a fork of scrambled eggs to his lips, the utensil gleaming against his blackened fingers. No matter how much John scrubs his hands, they’re never clean. As a stoker, John is one of more than a hundred men tasked with keeping the Britannic’s engines running day and night. His job is to shovel heavy wheelbarrows of coal into the furnaces that power the ship's steam turbines. And before he starts another shift fueling the ship, he’s fueling himself with a hearty breakfast.

As John wipes his plate with a slice of bread, the ship shudders and a loud metallic groan echoes through the hull. John instantly knows that something serious has happened—because he’s been through this before.

Four years ago, John was asleep in his bunk aboard the Titanic when a similar noise woke him. On that occasion, the Titanic had hit an iceberg. John made his way to the boat deck, but by the time he was told to abandon ship, all the lifeboats had gone. John survived in the freezing water just long enough to be rescued—but he was one of only a handful of engine room workers who escaped the sinking ship. Now, his blood runs cold as he realizes that the Britannic might be going down too.

John heads to the upper decks and his worst fears are realized. The Britannic is sinking - and fast. Already, John can feel the deck beneath him listing. Thankfully, this ship hasn’t picked up any wounded servicemen. Only the crew and medical staff are aboard, and there’s plenty of space for them in the lifeboats. John helps launch one of the boats, but before it’s lowered from the deck, an officer tells him to get in and man the oars. John doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t want to end up in the water like he did when the Titanic went down, so he climbs into the lifeboat as it descends.

But when the lifeboat touches water, John realizes something’s wrong. The Britannic is still moving. His lifeboat rocks in the swell created by the giant ship cutting through the water, and John and the others on board must cling on or risk being flung overboard. But that’s not the only danger.

From this low angle, John can see that the front of Britannic is tilting forwards, sinking by the head just like Titanic. But as the liner leans further and further into the water, the stern of the ship rises out of the waves—exposing the still spinning propellers.

The partially submerged blades churn the water, creating a current that draws John’s lifeboat toward it. John shouts at his fellow sailors to pull on the oars as hard as they can, but they can’t overcome the power of the Britannic.

John watches with horror as another lifeboat is pulled ahead of them into the foaming sea. The nurses and sailors in it scream as the lifeboat and everyone inside are sliced to pieces by the spinning propeller blades. John pulls on his oar even harder, but it’s no use. His lifeboat is being dragged into the propellers as well. So just before it’s sucked into the blades, John jumps into the sea.

He disappears beneath the surface and rolls like a spinning top. He’s completely disorientated but kicks hard, aiming for the direction he thinks is up. Then, his head knocks against a large piece of wood. John hopes it’s floating on the surface and that all he needs to do is get out from underneath it. But he can’t find the edge. He flails about in the water, his vision blurring as he begins to black out. But just as he’s about to lose consciousness, John spots a bright patch of sky and, with one last desperate burst of strength, kicks his legs toward it. His head bursts above the surface and into the air.

Gasping for breath and coughing up seawater, John clutches onto the piece of wreckage. He looks up at the huge ship still towering over him. The Britannic’s propellers have stopped turning, but the liner’s list is even more noticeable now. It’s clear the ship doesn’t have long.

John finds the strength to swim to another lifeboat. He’s pulled from the water by the strong arms of his fellow sailors. And safe at last, John can only watch as the evacuation of the liner continues. 35 lifeboats are launched in all. And finally, as the waters come over the bow, the remaining officers on the bridge of the ship let off the Britannic’s whistles one last time. The mourning sound echoes across the sea. And then the captain and his officers abandon ship.

The Britannic rolls onto its side as its stern rises high into the air. And finally, with a deep groan of metal, the liner plunges beneath the surface.

The first rescue ship will arrive an hour later. Out of over a thousand people on board, only thirty will be missing. An investigation will later reveal that most of them died after lifeboats were prematurely lowered into the water and were sucked into the propellers. But the exact reason why the Britannic sank will remain a mystery for decades, until the wreck of the liner is discovered and the full story of what happened that day finally comes to light.

Act Three

It’s September 2003 in the Aegean Sea, 87 years after the sinking of the Britannic.

400 feet below the surface, diver Leigh Bishop kicks his flippered feet, using his hands to hold a bulky underwater camera in front of him. There’s little light to guide him. But Leigh knows he’s in the right place when a distinctive shape emerges from the gloom: the wreck of the Britannic.

The exact location of the Britannic was lost after the ship sank, but 28 years ago, the wreck was discovered by undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau. Jacques dived the wreck and discovered a gaping hole near the ship’s bow. He concluded that Britannic had been hit by a torpedo fired by a German submarine. It’s a controversial finding since the Britannic was a hospital ship - but subsequent expeditions to the wreck haven’t found any evidence to contradict the theory.

Leigh pushes the camera ahead of him as he approaches the deformed bow of the ship. The Britannic has become a haven for sea life, and countless fish dart in and out of the fingers of rust that hang like stalactites from the corroding metal.

But as Leigh begins shooting photographs, some debris on the seabed catches his attention. He moves closer and brushes away some silt. Unsure of what exactly he’s looking at, Leigh takes photographs of the metal artifacts and records its position. Then, he continues shooting the wreck until it’s time for him to return to the surface.

Only later, when experts pore over the photographs, does Leigh realize the significance of his find. The metal object on the seabed was a German mine anchor. And this discovery solves the mystery of what sank the Britannic. The ship was not hit by an enemy torpedo. Instead, it ran into a mine laid by the German submarine U-73.

This news doesn’t make any front-page headlines. The loss of Britannic’s sister ship Titanic remains the far more famous story. But it was partly due to the lessons learned after the Titanic sank that the Britannic was not a deadlier disaster, despite it being the largest ship to be lost in World War One after it hit a mine and went down in the Aegean Sea on November 21st, 1916.

Outro

Next on History Daily. November 22nd, 1718. The Royal Navy hunts down and kills the pirate captain Edward Teach, better known as "Blackbeard".

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammed Shahzaib.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by Dorian Merina.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.