•A diver looking for the HMHS Britannic, a British hospital ship that sank off the Greek island of Kea in 1916 after hitting a mine during World War II.
The Greek culture ministry stated today that deep-sea divers had brought back the first group of items from the Titanic’s sister ship, which fell off the coast of Greece in 1916.
The ministry reported that in May, a study program involved “the retrieval of objects from the wreck site (of the HMHS Britannic) for the first time, from depths exceeding 120 meters (394 feet).”
The Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast built three transatlantic passenger lines, the HMHS Britannic being one of them. The RMS Titanic was the first of these lines, according to AFP.
The British Admiralty took it and turned it into a floating hospital during World War I. In November 1916, it hit a German mine while cruising off the Greek island of Kea.
The boat went down in less than an hour. The culture ministry reported that 30 of the 1,065 persons on board died after the ship’s propellers became caught on two lifeboats.
A team of 11 skilled deep-sea divers used closed-circuit diving equipment to document the wreck and its cargo.
Simon Mills, a British amateur historian and the founder of the Britannic Foundation, set up the research and Greece’s Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities oversaw it.
It claimed, “Conditions at the wreck site were especially difficult because of the currents, depth, and low visibility.” It also said that some of the items that were first chosen could not be collected because of where they were and how well they were preserved.
The things that were found include the ship’s observation post bell, the portside signal lamp, some first- and second-class portable equipment, ceramic tiles that had been used to adorn a Turkish bath, and a pair of binoculars.
The ministry claimed that they were taken to the ephorate’s labs in Athens for more conservation work and will be on display in a permanent exhibition at a new museum of submerged antiquities that is being built in Piraeus.
The RMS Olympic, the group’s third ship, sailed from 1911 to 1935. After the Titanic sank in 1912, the ship’s safety was improved.
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