RMS Olympic: The Titanic’s Unsinkable and Nearly Identical Sister
Nearly identical to her sister ship, the Titanic, the Olympic survived numerous collisions and even sunk a U-boat in WW1
The RMS Olympic was the first of the White Star Line’s trio of Olympic-class vessels. She was followed by the Titanic and the Britannic. The fate of the Titanic is well-known and probably the most famous maritime disaster of all time. The Britannic became a hospital ship during the First World War and also tragically sank in 1916 after striking a mine in the Mediterranean.
The Olympic avoided the tragic fate of her sister ships but only just. She survived direct collisions and even sank a U-boat. Even so, she was incredibly fortunate to have endured, and her story is a truly remarkable one that deserves greater recognition.
The largest ship in the world and its first collision
When the RMS Olympic launched on 20th October 1910, she was not only the largest vessel but also the largest man-made moving object in the world. This record was broken by the Titanic a year later, which was just three inches longer and 1,000 tonnes heavier. The Olympic, sadly, regained the title after the tragedy that befell her sister ship in 1912.
Having completed five successful trips across the Atlantic, the Olympic’s first mishap occurred just an hour and 20 minutes after leaving Southampton. The British cruiser HMS Hawke was travelling in the opposite direction when the Olympic started a wide turn. This caught the captain of the Hawke off guard, and the much smaller ship found itself being pulled in by the larger vessel’s propellers, unable to avoid a collision.
The Hawke, designed to sink other ships by ramming them, had a strong bow that ripped into the Olympic’s starboard side, creating two large holes above and below the waterline. Fortunately, two watertight compartments prevented the ship from sinking, and she managed to limp back to Southampton. The Hawke fared much worse, with its entire bow caved in.
After this incident, for which the Olympic took the blame, word spread that it was advisable to steer clear of vessels of this size. An unfortunate consequence for the Titanic was that this collision reinforced the notion that these massive ships were unsinkable.
On an interesting side note, the captain of the Olympic at the time was E. J. Smith, the same captain who would later command and famously go down with the Titanic less than a year later.
The Titanic, a mutiny, and a refit
The night the Titanic sank
On the fateful night that the Titanic sank, the Olympic was 580 miles away. On receiving the SOS, she immediately powered up and headed to assist. When she was still about 120 miles from where her sister ship had sunk, the captain was informed that it was already too late. The RMS Carpathia had saved all the passengers it could. When the Olympic offered to help take on the survivors, the request was declined. Understandably, it was decided that the survivors of the Titanic would find it too traumatic to board an identical vessel.
The strike and alleged mutiny
The lack of lifeboats on the Titanic was now a known and contentious issue, and the Olympic faced the same problem. A hurried refit saw several inflatable second-hand lifeboats added. Many of these were rotten and would clearly have been useless. As a result, the crew went on strike. Rather than fully addressing these legitimate concerns, the White Star Line chose to replace some of the crew, an approach that backfired.
The strike continued, with 54 sailors leaving the ship, citing unsafe lifeboats and unqualified non-union replacement crew. They were charged with mutiny. Eventually, the White Star Line realised the negative publicity was damaging their reputation, and the strikers were allowed to rejoin the ship.
The refit
Another five months passed before the Olympic was withdrawn from service for a full refit. Lessons learned from the Titanic tragedy led to the number of lifeboats increasing from 20 to 68. An inner skin was added, effectively giving her a double hull, and some watertight bulkheads were raised to correct a design flaw. This remodelling increased the gross tonnage, and by the end of the refit, the Olympic was 36 tonnes heavier than the Titanic had been.
The Olympic emerged better than ever, which was fortunate, as a year later, the First World War broke out, and the ship was to play an important role.
The First World War
At the start of the war, as a precaution, the Olympic was painted grey, her portholes were blocked, and the deck lights were turned off to make her harder to spot. Her first few trips were commercial, filled with Americans trying to return home.
On one of these trips, she came to the aid of HMS Audacious, which had struck a mine and was seriously damaged. After three failed attempts to tow the ship, the 250 people on board were evacuated to the Olympic. A few hours later, the Audacious exploded and sank. This incident led to the Olympic and her passengers being held for a week, as the loss of the Audacious was deemed too demoralising for the British public.
As the threat of U-boats grew, bookings dried up, and the plan was to have the Olympic lay idle until the war ended. However, in 1915, due to her size, she was requisitioned by the Admiralty to become a troop carrier capable of transporting 6,000 people. Stripped of her peacetime fittings, she was armed with 12-pounders and 4.7-inch guns.
Now outfitted, the Olympic, under the command of Captain Bertram Hayes, loaded soldiers bound for the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey. In the Mediterranean, she rescued survivors of the French vessel Provincia, which had been sunk by a U-boat. This dangerous act earned a reprimand from the Admiralty, as the Olympic’s chief defence was her speed, and stopping in U-boat waters was a risk. However, the French saw it differently and awarded Hayes a Gold Medal of Honour.
The Olympic then returned to the Atlantic and was given a new camouflage scheme to make her more challenging to spot at speed. She completed several troop runs to Canada until 1917, when the Americans joined the war, and she began ferrying US troops to Europe. It was during this duty that she narrowly avoided being sunk by a German U-boat.
The fight with U-103
Although she was a troopship, the Olympic’s crew and the American soldiers on board were acutely aware of the dangers posed by U-boats. Tensions ran high with each Atlantic crossing. Only a few years earlier, the British vessel RMS Lusitania had been sunk by a German submarine, killing over half of its nearly 2,000 passengers, including American civilians. This notorious incident indirectly contributed to the US entering the war.
While near the Isles of Scilly, a U-boat, U-103, was spotted surfacing ahead. Acting quickly, the Olympic’s gunners opened fire. Rather than flee, the ship turned and headed straight for the enemy submarine. The U-boat attempted an emergency dive and shifted to a parallel course. Like the HMS Hawke years earlier, the submarine was sucked into the Olympic’s propellers. The portside blades punctured the German vessel’s pressure hull.
The U-boat crew scuttled their submarine and abandoned ship. The Olympic continued on her way, leaving an American vessel to pick up the stranded German crew. The Olympic suffered a couple of dented hull plates and a twisted prow but safely returned to Southampton.
It was later revealed that U-103 had been preparing to torpedo the Olympic but failed to flood its torpedo tubes in time. Once again, the Olympic had been incredibly lucky. As a reward for his actions, Captain Hayes received the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). Some American troops on board also paid for a commemorative plaque to be placed on the ship.
After the War, a refit and a surprise discovery
During the war, the Olympic successfully carried over 200,000 soldiers and travelled around 184,000 miles. Captain Hayes received a knighthood in 1919, and the ship earned the nickname Old Reliable. She was then refitted for civilian service.
The refit modernised her accommodations and improved her engine, which now ran on oil rather than coal. This change reduced refuelling times from days to hours.
During the refit, a remarkable discovery further proved how fortunate the Olympic had been. In dry dock, a dent with a crack was found just below the waterline. It had been caused by a torpedo that struck her but failed to detonate. Later, historians identified the attacker as U-boat SM U-53, which had fired the torpedo while the Olympic was in the English Channel.
Throughout the 1920s, the Olympic was a popular and fashionable ship, transporting the rich and famous of the day. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford celebrated their honeymoon aboard one of her voyages. Other notable passengers included Marie Curie, Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, and the future king, Prince Edward.
Retirement and eventual fate
The Great Depression of the 1930s hit the shipping industry hard. Passenger numbers on the transatlantic route halved in the first five years of the decade. Meanwhile, larger and faster liners began to dominate.
The White Star Line merged with the Cunard Line in 1934. This merger allowed them to build the RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth, rendering older vessels obsolete. The Olympic sailed from New York for the final time on 5th April 1935.
Various attempts were made to save her, including proposals for summer cruises and floating hotels, but none succeeded. She was ultimately sailed to Jarrow in 1935 and dismantled over the next two years. Many of her fittings remain in hotels, museums, and private collections.
By the time of her retirement, the Olympic had completed 257 round trips across the Atlantic. In addition to the wartime soldiers, she had safely transported 430,000 commercial passengers. Unlike the tragedies that struck her sister ships, Titanic and Britannic, the lesser-known RMS Olympic was the vessel that truly proved unsinkable.
A version of this story was originally published on my Substack – Intriguing Times – where you’ll find lots of strange and little-known story from across history and culture. You can check it out here.
