MV Britannic (III) - 1930 - 1960
The White Star Line’s history had never seemed to recover since the terrible
tragedy of the Titanic in 1912. Only four years later, the third of the Olympic-class
vessels - the second Britannic - went to the bottom in the Mediterranean as
a casualty of World War I. The war itself meant bad times for the White Star
Line. Not until 1927 did the company put in service a ship of distinction, if
you do not count the German war-prizes from the beginning of the decade.
She was the Laurentic, and started a modernisation inside the White Star Line.
The Laurentic sported the new spoon-shaped stern, which would later be seen
on the Queens and other famous vessels. However, the ship was yet somewhat of
a throwback with its pencil funnels and blunt bow. To receive a reputation of
being a modern company, the White Star Line had to take one more step away from
traditional shipbuilding.
When the Cunard Line and the French Line started off with their projects of
building the Queen Mary and the Normandie, the White Star Line too wanted to
compete. They presented plans of a ship with a thousand feet in length, and
a speed to rival the ship’s two competitors. The ship was supposed to be named
Oceanic after the first steam vessel in White Star possession. But as timed
hardened and the Depression drew closer, White Star had to cancel their ship.
Cunard put all work on their ship on hold. Only the French managed to continue
their work. Since the building of the Oceanic already had begun in 1928, lots
of steel now lay unusable. Instead of throwing it away, White Star decided to
have it put in another vessel, a vessel similar to the Oceanic’s planned proportions.
Just as with the Queen Mary and the Normandie, the Oceanic was supposed to bear
three squat funnels. The new and smaller ship would only sport two of them,
but otherwise be a copy of the thousand-footer.
The name of the vessel that would bring the White Star Line into the modern
world of shipbuilding, was Britannic. On August 6, 1929, the Britannic was launched.
The world was interested in White Star’s new notion of external design. One
interesting feature was that the ship’s forward funnel - not the aft one - was
a dummy. This dummy was not used for ventilation as ordinary dummy-funnels used
to; it housed the radio cabin and the engineering officer’s smoking room. In
June, the next year, the world’s heart would beat one extra beat, when the inside
of the ship was revealed upon delivery. It was obvious that the new ‘Art Deco’
style had influenced the ship. Much light wood and other artistic novelties
were shown inside the ship. The Île de France from 1927 had set the pattern.
The Britannic’s maiden voyage started off from Liverpool on June 28, 1930, and
continued to Belfast and Glasgow, before heading for New York. The passengers
could choose to travel in three classes: Cabin, Tourist and Third. This dividing
(instead of First, Second and Third) meant that the ship’s lower class had been
given less space, and so had the higher class. All about the liner circulated
around equality and this lead to that the Britannic became a very popular ship.
It was not only in appearance the Britannic was a novelty. The ship’s machinery
was of an entirely new breed. She was the first major British motor-vessel on
the seas, and her two diesel engines - developing 13,000 horse power each -
only consumed half of the amount of fuel an ordinary steam vessel did. This
made the Britannic an interesting point of view when ship builders in the future
decided upon diesel machinery instead of the classic steam engine. But it would
take time before the diesel would rule the market.
The efficiency of the Britannic’s Diesel engines could easily be proved by showing
the radiators in the engine-room, used to heat the cold place. In 1934, both
the White Star Line and the Cunard Line had suffered so terribly from the Depression
that the two former rivals had to merge in May that year. It was the British
Government that forced the two companies together when Cunard needed a loan
for the still unfinished Queen Mary. Thus did the Queen partly become a White
Star ship. One can only assume that the ship’s dated white forecastle was a
White Star brainchild, since Cunard’s ships had never used a raised white forecastle
- that was something of a White Star ‘logo’. This raised forecastle also appeared
on the Britannic, but it was connected with the ship’s middle superstructure,
just as the second Britannic sported. When the merger was completed, both shipping
companies remained with their own identity. The former White Star vessels continued
to sail in their old livery, with buff funnels and yellow stripe along the hull.
The first years of the new company became disastrous for the bereaved old White
Star fleet. Ship after ship went to the scrappers, even the magnificent Olympic
was cut up before the age of thirty. By 1936, the only ships in service that
had once been in the White Star Line were the Britannic and her two years younger
sister Georgic. These two vessels were the only ones that the new Cunard White
Star spent any money on. The grand old Adriatic only served in the new company
for a few months before being scrapped. After a few prosperous years in the
twenties, the world faced the Depression. This meant weak human fates, and that
was what the German Führer Adolf Hitler took advantage of when he double-crossed
his countrymen to vote for the Nazi Party. When Hitler was in a position of
power, he wanted to remedy the pride Germany had lost after the First World
War. He wanted to expand his Reich, and started off by invading his eastern
neighbour Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and her allies could not tolerate
this, and told Hitler that if his military power in Poland was not removed by
11.00 a.m. on September 3, Britain would declare war on Germany. Hitler had
assumed this, and at 11.00 a.m., on September 3, 1939, the Second World War
begun.
This required means of transport. The Queen Mary and her new sister Queen Elizabeth
were both called in as troop-ships. The Britannic had been called in before
the war started, on August 29. The soldier accommodation was first decided to
be around 3,000, but later it was increased to 5,000. In September, the Britannic
carried through her first war duties when she shipped soldiers between the Clyde
and Bombay. By 1943, the Britannic carried troops between the Americas and Algiers
in the so-called ‘Operation Husky’. When the war ended in 1945, the Britannic
had carried over 180,000 troops and steamed 376,000 miles. After a year of repatriation
work between Britain and the Far East, the Britannic was returned to Cunard
White Star in March 1947.
Britannic was converted back into a passenger liner at Liverpool, and when she
reappeared in service in 1948, the ship had had her tonnage increased to 27,650
tons due to the improvements that had been done. One of the novelties was that
the promenade deck had been glassed in - a common improvement on liners, especially
on the north Atlantic trade. To further make money for her company, the Britannic
made cruises from New York to the Caribbean during wintertime. In May, 1950,
the Cunard part of the Cunard White Star Line had become so dominating that
it swallowed the White Star part, and after this the Cunard Line was back in
business, and the White Star Line had vanished forever. In spite of this, both
Britannic and Georgic continued to sport their lovely White Star livery until
their withdrawal. In Juneof the same year, Britannic collided with the United
States Liner Pioneer Land in the Ambrose Channel, New York. After a thorough
inspection, the Britannic was declared seaworthy, and continued her voyage.
Even though a sturdy ship, the Britannic suffered from the declining number
of passengers on the North Atlantic. In order to keep herself alive, every winter
was now booked for long cruises to temperate areas. More and more people seemed
to enjoy this new way of spending time. The White Star Line definitely left
history on November 11, 1960, when the Britannic set out on her last voyage
from Liverpool to New York. The last year had consisted of endless engine-problems
and this was certainly one of the reasons of the ship’s withdrawal. The Britannic’s
younger sister Georgic had disappeared already in 1956. Perhaps she would have
lived longer if it were not for the terrible injuries she received during the
war. On December 2, the Britannic was back in Liverpool and two days later she
was sold to British Iron & Steel Co. The scrapping was done by Thos. W. Ward
at Inverkeithing in 1961.
Length: 712 feet (217.5 m)
Beam: 82 feet (25 m)
Tonnage: 26,943 gross tons
Engines: Burmeister & Wein diesels powering two propellers
Service speed: 18 knots
Passengers: 1,553
Daniel Othfors