From the beginning of the use of ships earmarked to transport the sick and injured from battlefield field-hospitals to hospitals fully equipped with staff and equipment to deal with such horrific wounds, and as important as any other consideration, hospitals far removed from the theatre of war, there have been atrocities and mis-use of the conveyance. Forces on each side of the war have always been deeply suspicious of what the 'real' use of the vessel is for, suspecting armaments, ammunition and war-stores being carried either as THE cargo, or in the belly of the vessel, well below the decks accommodating the operating theatres, the wards, and even the morgue, as contraband goods. Despite the proverbial 'markings' of a hospital ship as per the Geneva Convention, designed in honour-bound to be just that, a mercy-ship, a salvation for the badly wounded, and a centre of humanitarianism, open to ALL wounded personnel and the doctors of the enemy as well as the allies. Whilst some of the crew would be pre-occupied with safety and the rule-of-the-road navigation, making sure that in all respects their vessel would be seen as a mercantile ship (hospital ships were to be "light-loaded" ergo, not carrying cargo's and thus with a clear Plimsoll Line (introduced in 1876) showing, often one to two feet above sea level), no zig-zagging, no guns overt or covert, fully lit upper decks and decks with port holes, willing to heave to if challenged and to assist boarding parties in their searches, whilst below, the rule-of-the-Hippocratic Oath was the modus operandi and the sole reason why the vessel was on the high seas going about its business. The Germans in particular were the main abusers of this Geneva Convention (one of the original Conventions back in the 19th century and used successfully in the American Civil War) in both world wars, with outlandish behaviour from some UBoat Ultra-Nazi commanders.

  The allies, chiefly Britain and France often retaliated as this newspaper clip c.1917 shows, and the nearby German university town (to the French border and front-line) was clobbered more than once.

Reprisals for sunk Hospital Ships

  The German's were also prone to operate bogus hospital ships unashamedly, whilst accusing the British (in particular) of doing the same. Naivety apart, there was too much human orthodoxy in Great Britain to even let the authorities to consider such an evil thought, never mind to allow such a perverse thought to come to fruition. This story covers just one of their bogus ships:-

The German Hospital Ship Ophelia

  The case of the Ophelia in the Admiralty court went on and on for many days. I don't intend to show you the reports of these further days, but I can tell you that the Germans were found guilty on breaking the Geneva No10 Convention.

  Given the medical advances made during the Crimean War (1853-56) and the legend created by dear Florence Nightingale, one would think that at a war nearly 50 years later, the thought of the wounded would have been solved once and for all. It wasn't the case, for in 1899, naval personnel were not taught first aid, nor was the ability to swim even considered. Moreover at the Boer War (1899-1901) there was no hospital ships which by this time other countries had already built or modified suitable existing merchant ships. Warships were built with sick-bays in an entirely unsuitable position in the ship and the doctors were pre-occupied with not being able to cope during modern naval battles. This newspaper cutting of 1899 tells the story:-

The Hospital Ship and the Omdurman Campaign

  By 1903, the British Navy had no plans of any sort to deal with the wounded during and after naval battles at sea. This story, given its relative nearness to the start of WW1,is an eye opener!

The wounded in Naval Warfare

  Come the end of the first decade of the 20th century, training had been established in first aid for all those holding the rate of able seaman and above and all wardroom and gun room officers except for cadets but including midshipmen. Come the very beginning of WW1, the tragedy which struck the Royal Navy brought home two things. One, the need for self help particularly in ships with no in-depth medical appointments to the complement, and the other, that damaged ships and their desperate crews should not be rescued by other ships in company if there is any further danger to the would-be rescue ships. Better by far to leave these hapless sailors to their own destiny than to risk losing other ships coming to their rescue. We have seen this manifest itself on two quite well defined occasions, the first in the film "Cruel Sea" involving our own men in 'killed' and 'to be killed' situations (almost friendly fire) and the second, the sacrifice of the enemy in the real life drama of the final moments of the German battleship Bismarck. Here, the heavy cruiser HMS Dorsetshire which delivered the 'coup de grace' by firing four torpedoes into her prostrate hull and other units had the opportunity to save the lives of the German crew members, but left them in the water to drown because of the fear of prowling UBoats. A wise decision, but how must it have played out in the mind and conscience of the commanding officer of Doresetshire? In September 1914, barely had the war started, when three British cruisers were patrolling the North Sea. The Aboukir was attacked by a submarine sinking soon afterwards, when the other two, the Hogue and the Cressy went to her rescue and they too were torpedoed with a terrible loss of life - 60 officers and 1400 men. The lesson was not lost on the Royal Navy, and over night it changed the mind-set of former decent civilised naval officers making them realise than to shoot first in war without a care for the enemy, is the way to win a war and virtually all faced up to this duty/responsibility simply for the sake of our beloved country, defeating this beast, this uncouth and callous adversary at all costs. The many survivors, wounded and otherwise, were taken to RNSS (Royal Naval Sick Quarters) Shotley for treatment and assessment. This involved using boys' messes for the over-spill of personnel from these three cruisers.

  Of much greater importance was that Britain had developed a sizable fleet of hospital-ships as this little piece shows:-

British Hospital Ships

  The evil Germans had a sizable "guilt fund" which they had purloined and which they were willing to spend. Just about every evil act they carried out which they were well aware of, there was compensation on offer, that is, as long as those offered it were deemed to be of a civilised disposition, which ruled out four fifths of the world, but included northwest Europe, Scandinavia and the North Americans. For example, if they sank a hospital-ship there was on offer a per-head compensation for each loss of the medical complement but not the wounded combatants. ??500 to ??1000 was usually offered, but of course rarely if ever accepted.

  In the following file entitled Nov 1915 "General War News" I want to highlight just a few sections of a rather long text, so bear with it and ignore all that is not relevant. Only bother with the items I have shown in RED. Note in particular the compensation offered to the USA for the Americans who died in the torpedoing of the liner Lusitania which was refused and never offered again, although Germany made it known to the world that they were kind-hearted people.

The Serbian Retreat

  In February 1885 the British decided that a hospital was necessary to be built near the extremely busy Suez Canal at Port Said.

A British Hospital Ship at Port Said

  Now, Japan had a major naval war with Russia in 1905. But in 1904 they were thinking about hospital-ships.

Hospital Ships in Japan

  In 1901, to relieve the pressure on the less than adequate British system of evacuating the wounded from South Africa mainly to Netley Hospital on Southampton Water, the Americans very kindly offered a ship suitable for conversion into a hospital-ships called the Maine. Unfortunately, in her previous life she had been a cattle transporter vessel.

The Hospital Ship Maine

  Cognisant of the need to define the various classes of ships correctly, be they mercantile or naval e.g., battleships, destroyers etc and cargo vessels, cruise ships etc, opens the way to a very good quiz question which is 'What is the name of the largest vessel built as a passenger liner, now lying on the sea-bed' ? - But first, this article.

Attacks on Hospital Ships

This is a picture of her, His Majesty's Hospital Ship (HMHS) Britannic

  Note her "light loaded" status, a pre-requisite for all hospital-ships, indicating that she was virtually cargo free, with a good showing of boot-topping (the bottom black line you see) which, had it been "heavily loaded" would probably not have been seen at all. In Plimsoll-Line terms, she is "high out of the water".

  After the sinking in 1912 of the passenger liner Titanic, the Whitestar Line completed a third ship in that class namely the Britannic - the other one being the Olympic. Many modifications were made to the plans used to build the Titantic in the light of her tragic misfortune and sinking, making Britannic appreciably heavier and overall larger than Titanic. Although always designed and built to replace the Titanic, her launching coincided with the start of WW1 in 1914 and she was put on hold and never fitted-out as a commercial ocean liner. In 1915 she was completed but as a hospital-ship, given the name HMHS Britannic, although again, in such a manner, that when the 'thought to be short war' ended, she would return to her builders to be completed as the world's biggest and most opulent passenger liner. She never made that appointment.

  In the period 1915-1916, almost all the British hospital-ships (in excess of 25) were deployed in the Mediterranean ferrying the wounded from the Gallipoli campaign back to Southampton and Netley (mainly), meaning that come Jutland 30th May/1st June 1916) , although not factored into the Grand Fleet supporters fleet, there were no hospital-ships available for the home waters. HMHS Britannic, a massive ship for those days having a GRT (Gross Registered Tonnage of nearly 53,000 tons) - not to be confused with naval displacements where a fully loaded ship of her size and girth, would have been in the region of 70,000 tons, although less as fitted out . GRT is the volume of space within the hull and enclosed space above the deck of a merchant ship which are available for cargo, stores, fuel, passengers and crew and that each Gross Ton = 100 cubic feet. Add the weight of the machinery, engines, boilers, boats, etc etc, and you can imagine how much more than her GRT she would have displaced. In a simple term, as a warships uses up fuel (coal or FFO in those days) her displacement is reduced accordingly, but the GRT of a merchant ship remains the same notwithstanding. In a passenger liner/cruise ship, a large per cent of the GRT is sold to paying passengers so the bigger the GRT the bigger the gross earning ability of the vessel. In Britannic's case 53000 tons x 100 cubic feet = 5,300,000 cubic feet =150,078 cubic metres. Imagine entering into a warehouse say of 150,078 cubic metres storage capacity, the building would be 115 meters tall x 115 meters wide x 115 meters long approximately, and for people of my age that would be a cube shaped box of 377 feet in each direction of the three sides H x D x W. Looking for a near perfect comparison, I came up with this. To fill a space of 377 feet in what ever direction, take one London double decker bus and to its front place a Nelson's Column complete (bottom of plinth to top of Nelson's hat) laying in the horizontal plane and then add another Nelson's Column in the same plane to the back of the bus. That overall length, column - bus - column, give or take a matter of inches is 377 feet long from one end to the other. Now re-jig the whole thing and put it upright in the vertical plane. I am sure that will agree that's a pretty big place, but by modern standards it is tiny! For example, Wembley Stadium has an area trapped by its closed roof and inside all its walls of 4 million cubic feet. That means that our warehouse would fit into Wembley twenty five and a half times, or more succinct, so too would HMHS Britannic's GRT. MV Queen Mary II has a GRT of 150,000 tons (so a perceived displacement of 200,000 tons or getting on that way), and her cubic metre measurement is 150000 tons x 100 cubic feet = 15,000,000 cubic feet = 424753 cubic metres. Thus, the GRT of MV Queen Mary II would fit into Wembley nine and a half times.

Anyway............

  HMHS Britannic had completed several trips from the eastern Mediterranean to the UK and back (five in all is recorded) and was returning to Asian Minor empty of wounded servicemen with just crew, doctors and nurses of the RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps) enroute to pick up more wounded souls. On the 21st November 1916 whilst at full speed, a mighty explosion occurred and fifty five minutes later she sank. She was carrying 1065 people of whom 1035 survived and were rescued, leaving 30 dead, five of who were buried in earth and the others left in their watery graves. As the newspaper cutting above shows, it was believed to be the evil act of the Hun, a submarine torpedoing against the Geneva Convention and as such, murder upon the high seas. The German UBoat U73 which under its first commander (Gustav Sieb) had sunk nineteen allied vessels (it sank a further five under two different and subsequent commanders) claimed the 'kill', but riddled with guilt (is that a possibility for a Kraut?) and realising the implication of such a foul deed, prevaricated although he didn't take any steps to delete the 'kill' from his claims. For ninety years, the death of the Britannic was blamed on a German submarine commander. However, in 2006 a dive on the wreck found the anchors and wires/cables of tethered mines in the immediate vicinity of the sinking position, and it became obvious to all the experts that the Britannic had hit a mine whilst at full speed. The German's had certainly destroyed the Britannic but not by submarine warfare, but by laying a mine-field. Incidentally, the twenty four 'kills' of U73, whilst a large number, was an insignificance when compared to U35 which sank well in excess of two hundred vessels under four different commanders, and survived the war surrendering to the Harwich Forces under Commodore First Class Tyrwhitt RN.

  Although the numbers of dead were few compared to other sinking especially those at Jutland just a few months before, the wreck is treated as a war grave, and although now privately owned, permission is required from both the British and the Greek authorities as well as from the owner. We have to be grateful that all on board at the time of the mining were able bodied men and women and not wounded and bed/bunk ridden soldiers. The rapid sinking of the vessel was due to the inability to close watertight doors due to buckling door frames, but also from the lack of understanding of the need for watertight integrity by the RAMC staff. For example, nurses had opened all the scuttles (port holes) on the hospital ward-decks for fresh air reasons, which were never shut, and which invited in thousands of tons of sea water causing a massive lurch and a severe list. Today, the Britannic is the largest built passenger liner laying on the sea bed.

  By mid WW1, Whitestar had lost two of its three large luxury passenger liners, so it might be of interest to have a quick look on how the oldest and smallest of the three, the Olympic fared. Well to put your mind at rest, unlike her younger sister ships, the Olympic enjoyed a long and illustrious career, spanning 24 years from 1911 to 1935 - however, just having the simple ability to read will tell you that that statement is wrong, and it should read from 1918 to 1935: the period before WW1 was anything but illustrious! Good, but did she have any near misses? She spent the WW1 years as a troop ship and was much acclaimed. Before WW1, the Master of the Olympic was Captain Edward Smith and by September 1911 had completed many journeys across to New York and back. At this time he found himself in the Solent on a return voyage with the cruiser Hawke in the vicinity. There, he made a disastrous mistake which caused a collision between the two ships, incurring heavy and very expensive repair bills and much hand-wringing to the Whitestar executives. On return to her builders in Belfast, parts manufactured and designed for the Titanic had to be diverted to repair the Olympic putting Titanic's programme into a spin. Once back at sea, the seemingly ill-fated liner lost (threw) one of its giant propellers, once again bringing her back to Belfast, delaying Titanic's maiden voyage plans. Hawke was repaired with a brand new bow/fore section, but was an early loss in WW1 sunk by a German UBoat. Fortunately, there were no deaths or injuries in the collision. There was a major costly court case and the judgement went against the Whitestar Line and rather unfairly some said, against Captain Smith, for at that instance, Olympic was under the guidance of the Southampton pilot. The cost impact on Whitestar was enormous and bookings for Olympic faltered as an added punishment: she was out of revenue-earning during her two months repairs in Belfast. Moreover, it is just possible that had the Titanic's maiden voyage not been delayed by three weeks or so, she might not have come into contact with the iceberg. The greatest irony was that Captain Smith of the Olympic became the Captain of the Titanic and lost his life in that dreadful and freak accident. Weird and eerie when one thinks about it?

  Hawke with a total crushed and purposely designed ramming bow. The navy and Hawke's captain were completely exonerated from any blame.

and for the very last time sadly, a picture of the Olympic arriving in Belfast for repairs on left using spare parts from the Titanic on right at that point being fitted out.

  When the Olympic arrived in Southampton from New York having crossed when Titanic was heading for New York which she didn't make, she was inundated by inspectors wanting details about this and that, she being a clone of the Titanic, and if under test, the Olympic could now do it, then questions were asked as to why Captain Smith in Titanic didn't do it - like taking avoiding action when the berg was sighted and how long it would take to turn two or three points to miss the obstacle at such and such a speed with known sea and wind conditions. Horror of horror, it was ascertained that the Olympic had identical life boats and life saving equipment, so before her next rapid turn-around voyage back to New York, there was a mad dash to procure collapsible life boats for all in the ship. This episode and much else, led to a mutiny in the ship. The mutineers were tried at Portsmouth's Crown Court and found guilty. However, the presiding judge said that none would be imprisoned or punished in any other way given the circumstances of the loss of Titanic and the likenesses of the Olympics inadequacies. Whitestar refused to take the mutineers back, but then feared that the general public would side with them which would have been disastrous for trade and so re-employed them. The vessel resumed its programme, and it took a while for relationship between crew and officers/owners of the Olympic to regain formed ties.

  In October 1912 Whitestar withdrew the Olympic and sent her to Belfast to be remodelled to incorporate the lessons learned from the Titanic tragedy.

  Come the Spring of 1913, gone were the advertisement for the Olympic and in came those for the "New Olympic" extolling the virtues of all that had gone into the six month refit, for example, the twenty original lifeboats were now sixty four lifeboats and all with their own davits.

  At the start of WW1 the Olympic once again met the Royal Navy close to, to rescue men from the sinking battleship Audacious off Northern Ireland. She took onboard many of the survivors but paid the price for helping out. At all costs the sinking had to be kept secret from the British public by order of Jellicoe, and so Olympic was "shut down" with all radio communications stopped and all passengers stopped from leaving the ship except for the crew of the Audacious. Eventually, Jellicoe allowed Olympic to dock in Belfast where the passengers disembarked.

  In May 1915 she was requisitioned as a Troop Ship. Her first trip as such was on the 24th September 1915. Her service was nothing other than exemplary even including the sinking of a UBoat U-103. At the end of the war her captain was knighted for war service.

  In the 1930's while entering New York harbour back as a swish passenger liner, she ran over a light ship mapping the navigation route into New York, killing seven of the eleven crew. A sad end to such a fine career.

  Finally, a sad but inevitable picture, the likes of which we mariners have seen many times. It shows Olympic (left) and Mauretania (right) at Southampton awaiting their destruction in 1935. She had travelled 1.8 million miles. In Olympics case, a millionaire MP bought the ship for approximately ??97,000. He felt sorry for a group of dockyard workers in the north, and gave it to them to wreck so that they would have a paid job funded by the scrap value they released. When it came to the big stuff, the salvaging of the main upper deck downwards, the superstructure-less vessel was passed to a yard geared up for such heavy industry, and no doubt the kind rich MP got some of his money back through salvage revenue.