All language subtitles for Titanics.Tragic.Twin.The.Britannic.Disaster.2016.1080p.WEBRip.x264-RARBG

(slow paced music)

- The sinking of the Titanic in April 1912

was a tragedy unlike any other.

Surely it could never happen again?

But it did.

Because, incredibly, Titanic
had a near identical sister,

who suffered an almost identical fate.

And here, deep in the warm
waters of the Mediterranean,

within only a few years
of her older sibling,

she met her end.

Her name was Britannic.

She was Britain's biggest ship.

- After the Titanic disaster,

Britannic was re-engineered
to be even more unsinkable.

And yet, on the 21st November, 1916,

she sank in just 55 minutes,

three times faster than Titanic.

- I'll be speaking to the
descendants of survivors

who we've tracked down
for the very first time.

Using rarely seen and unpublished diaries

and letters of captain and crew,

we'll recreate what it was
like for Britannic's survivors

to have one hour to fight for their lives.

(solemn music)

And we'll discover how
Britannic's victims died horribly,

and avoidably.

Tonight we'll be piecing together

what happened in that 55 minutes.

On the anniversary of her sinking,

we're recreating the first

minute-by-minute account of the events

that led to the tragic end
of Titanic's lost sister,

Britannic, Britain's
mightiest ship of World War I.

(triumphant music)

(whimsical music)

This is the dry dock in Belfast

where both Titanic and
Britannic were built.

And it is truly vast.

In 1910, it was the biggest
dry dock in the world,

established to allow the building of two

of the biggest ships that
anyone had ever seen.

Just to give you a scale of them,

Titanic or Britannic alone

would have filled this entire space.

Our guide to Britannic's
story is Simon Mills,

owner of the Britannic wreck.

Simon is going to help me find

eyewitness accounts to the disaster.

Now the Britannic story
isn't nearly as well-known

as the Titanic's story,

and I'm trying to, kind of,

unpick it really and
discover what happened.

- Titanic sank, very
high publicity, I mean,

they interviewed as many
survivors as possible,

newspaper coverage all over the place.

Britannic sank in the First World War.

- Okay, are there any key
characters, any relatives,

anybody I can talk to who
can give me a, kind of,

picture of the people
that were on this ship?

- I can give you some starting points.

For instance, we have here
Captain Charles Alfred Bartlett.

He was in command of the
Britannic on the day she sank.

(solemn music)

Archie Jewell, who was
also on the Titanic.

- Oh, really?

Actually one of Titanic's
lookouts, believe it or not.

Violet Jessop, very experienced
White Star Line stewardess.

- Oh, she's beautiful, isn't she?

- She is indeed, yeah.

- Anyone else that would be able to shed

any more light on what it
might have been like that day?

- Sheila Macbeth, nurse,
kept a very detailed diary.

- One of the big challenges,

and you know this as a historian,

is to hear the voices of
people who weren't educated.

The people who were, I don't
know, right in the bowels,

at the coal face doing the work,

but not necessarily ever recorded.

- There's a story of an
Antrim seaman we believe,

who was actually on the Britannic.

He told a very, very dramatic
story down in the engine room.

- [Kate] He was from Ulster?

- He was an Ulsterman.

- Can you also give me a sense of

of what the ship was doing?

Was this a, sort of, to
all intents and purposes,

an ordinary day?

- Pretty routine, yeah.

I mean, Britannic was a
very, very safe posting.

She was a hospital ship.

She was, in theory, inviolable,
could not be attacked.

It was beautiful, calm, clear weather.

There was nothing unusual
about what was going on.

They'd all been sitting down to breakfast,

and suddenly the world collapsed.

(ominous music)

- [Kate] So all is smooth sailing aboard

His Majesty's Hospital Ship, Britannic.

Everyone, and everything, is in order.

- The day before, we'd
worked like factory hands,

tying up all the kits
ready for the next day,

so that we might rest the day before

the patients came on board.

What a day of rest that was.

- The first person I need
to meet is Margaret Meehan,

niece of Violet Jessop, the
adventurous stewardess who,

amazingly, survives both
Titanic and Britannic.

What's important for me,

is that Violet writes
the most complete account

of the Britannic's sinking.

Do you remember your, sort of,

first time meeting her
and what she was like?

- She was great fun.

I think she was just highly practical

as well as everything else.

And she never complained about the things

she brings up in her memoirs.

And certainly of the terrible
experiences she'd had,

she didn't talk about.

It wasn't till later that I realized

what she'd been through.

I've got this thing here.

- [Kate] Is this the original?

- Oh, well, this is 1930 typing, you know.

I can read a little bit out if you like.

- [Kate] I'd love you to.

- "It was the feast of our
Lady, November 21st, 1916.

"The early sun was shining through

"the windows of the lounge,

"they were there for Mass."

- Everybody scrambled down to
breakfast talking and joking.

For breakfast was quite the nicest,

friendliest time on board.

- The ship was steaming
20 knots, weather fine,

and the sea is smooth.

Bound to Moudros to
embark sick and wounded.

- [Kate] But this is just
the calm before the storm.

At 8:12am, disaster strikes.

(loud explosion)

The Britannic and her crew
now have just 55 minutes left.

(ominous music)

- There was a dull, deafening roar.

Britannic gave a shiver.

A long drawn-out shudder
from stem to stern,

shaking the crockery on the
tables, breaking things.

Until it slowly subsided.

We all knew that she had been struck.

- I'd only managed two
spoonfuls of porridge before,

bang and a shiver,

right down the length of the ship.

- There was a horrible jar, and a

grinding noise.

But down below we hardly
realised what had happened.

- At 8:12am, a tremendous but
muffled explosion occurred.

The ship trembling and vibrating most

violently fore and aft.

(bells ringing)

- [Kate] Britannic has taken
a hit on her lowest deck,

ahead of her boiler rooms.

But surprisingly, no-one on
board is particularly worried.

That's because when Britannic's

more famous sister Titanic sank,

Britannic was still
being built in Belfast.

Ship builders Harland and Wolff

need to avoid another disaster.

They give Britannic a second
hull, watertight engine rooms,

and plenty of lifeboats.

Britannic really is the
world's most unsinkable ship.

As World War I broke out,

the British government decided
that sturdy, safe Britannic

would make a terrific hospital ship.

Sailing peacefully from Southampton

via Naples to Greece, Britannic is

in fact on her fifth mission.

She'd already brought over 12,000

wounded British soldiers safely home.

Now, in the wake of
the Gallipoli disaster,

she's off to collect another boatload.

- This is Kea island,

it lies 60 miles south-east of Athens

on the beautiful Aegean Sea.

And 100 years ago, His
Majesty's Hospital Ship,

the Britannic, sailed past here on its way

to the port of Moudros
to pick up thousands of

injured Allied troops who'd
been fighting the Turks.

But little did the 1,065 sailors,

doctors and nurses on board realize

that this would be the
Britannic's last journey.

During my 25 years of diving,

I've always dreamed of reaching Britannic.

Now, on the centenary of her sinking,

I've been lucky enough to
join highly experienced

British and American divers

on a rare expedition to
the wreck of Britannic.

- [Narrator] It's 100%.

100%.

Here it is, it's in order.

- Team leader Richie Kohler has dived

both Britannic and her sister, Titanic.

What do you think the risks
are on a dive like this?

- It's an incredibly hostile
environment at 400 feet.

We're using multiple
different gas mixtures,

some would not support
life here on the surface,

and yet they are
life-supporting at 400 feet.

If you make a mistake, it
can cost you your life.

- As a diver who's dived
shipwrecks all round the world,

why is Britannic so special?

- Like many other people,

the story of Titanic is
what drew me to Britannic.

And not to be glib, I fell in
love with the younger sister.

She's even more beautiful.

When you look at Titanic, it's dark,

it's gloomy, it's broken
apart, it's in pieces.

When you look at Britannic,
she's in beautiful clear water,

surrounded by life.

(slow paced music)

- As Britannic is hit by the explosion,

Able Seaman Archie
Jewell is working on deck

right over the point of impact.

Archie also survived Titanic.

I'm meeting his great,
great niece, Tamsin Jewell.

So he was on the Titanic first?

- He was, yes.

He was on the Titanic as a lookout.

- So was he responsible

for the Titanic hitting the iceberg?

- He was a lookout, yes,
but not the lookout.

- [Kate] Right.

- He was actually in bed

and it was the sound of
the impact that woke him.

- Right.

When you look at the photo of him here,

he looks very formal,

he looks very, I don't know, composed.

But presumably he must
have been hugely upset,

hugely traumatized by the
experiences that he went through?

- There was plenty of times
he describes openly weeping

when he's reminiscing about
the things that he saw.

And I would imagine, even
though he had a relatively

short-lived life, it was something that

stayed with him the whole time.

- So do we know his role
in the story of Britannic?

- We do.

Archie wrote a very detailed
letter about what happened

on the morning, where
it happened on the ship,

and in the days and weeks
that followed on his journey.

He's quite descriptive in this letter.

There's one part that
always, sort of, stands out.

That's a part where he says,
"But thank God I am not dead

- For that is the nearest to death

that I have ever been.

(ticking)

I was working right close
to where she was struck.

I saw the water coming in.

The smell of powder.

Before I knew where I was,

this man came rushing out of a cabin door,

right where she was
struck, and ran into me,

struck me with his head
just above my eyes, so,

I was blood, all over.

I ran up to the boat deck.

And then someone tied up my eye.

So I was like old Nelson.

Only one eye.

(suspenseful music)

- [Andy] Archie was incredibly lucky.

The first piece of evidence I want to see

is the site of the explosion

that set Britannic on
the path to disaster.

But I'm going to need some
hi-tech help to reach the wreck.

Our base at sea will be the
extraordinary Russian ship,

the U-boat Navigator.

It's been designed specifically

to support underwater exploration.

Nearly three miles offshore,
we spot the wreck on sonar.

The two multi-million pound
mini subs will guide us

and light our way to the wreck,

while remote-controlled underwater cameras

will track our every
move with all the safety

backup of a space mission.

There is no clear single
reason why Britannic was lost,

just a series of clues which
I want to see for myself.

So I've plotted an exploration path

that will take me from the bow where

the explosion hit, up
to the captain's bridge,

deep down to the boiler room corridor,

and finally to the mighty
propellers at the back.

Each of these points on the ship

will help me understand
what led to Britannic's end.

- [Narrator] Ready?

Let's go.

Okay lads.

- [Andy] Everything changes
as we leave the world of air

and enter the ocean.

Deep sea diving is the
closest thing on earth

to exploring outer space.

This line will guide us to Britannic.

The subs, and the robot cameras,

will light our way in the
darkness when we're 400 feet down.

And then, out of the blue, she appears.

Britannic.

I'm overwhelmed.

Seeing Britannic is like
seeing her sister, Titanic,

as we imagine her to be majestic, intact,

and so peaceful on the seabed.

- [Kate] I'm meeting Jonathan Mitchell,

grandson of nurse Sheila Macbeth.

Sheila's testimony will
tell me how the crew

reacted to the explosion.

Did you ever get a sense of

the sort of woman

that Sheila was before you were born?

- She was a strong-minded,
strong-willed woman,

like many of her family.

And she'd also, of course,
been driven in a way

that everybody was in
those days by patriotism

and a feeling that you
ought to do your bit.

- [Kate] Right.

What sort of age is she at this point?

- [Johnathon] 26.

- Did you ever get a sense of how

Sheila felt or reacted when
the explosion happened?

- Yes, my father decided
to record her memoirs.

Many, many hours' worth.

She talks about exactly this.

- [Narrator] We were at breakfast.

And we were sitting in
the huge dining room,

there was this sudden
bang as the ship shook.

- Major Priestley told
us to sit down again,

as the siren had not sounded.

It was quite the best thing to do

as the doors were few and narrow,

and there might have easily been a panic.

As it was, there was only
a most unnatural silence.

(ticking)

- The engines were going
full speed at the time,

but they were stopped, and
everyone was ordered to stand by.

(whimsical music)

- [Andy] We're about to see what Sheila

and the unnamed sailor could not.

We've come to the exact
point of the explosion

that crippled Britannic.

100 feet back from the bow of the ship,

is the immense crevasse in the hull

where Britannic was torn apart.

This massive canyon was caused first by

the explosion holing her,

and later, when she sank,

she was split apart by the
ship hitting the seabed.

- [Kate] But what caused the explosion?

The British press claimed the Germans have

torpedoed a defenseless
British hospital ship

against all rules of war.

(loud explosions)

But is this view credible?

- At that particular stage of the war,

the Germans were not
targeting hospital ships,

and so it was unlikely.

- But, you know, presumably,
mistakes are made,

or presumably, not
everybody follows the rules.

I mean, this is a war, after all.

- Yeah.

The German commanders at this stage

were under increasing pressure
not to antagonize America.

So the potential consequences

for a commander who made a
mistake could be quite heavy.

- Given that was the case,
given that was the rule,

why were torpedoes ever really
in the mix as a possibility?

- Whenever ships were sunk in the war

there was always someone who
saw a periscope or a torpedo.

On Britannic, for instance,

we had two definite
sightings of torpedoes.

The problem is that one person
saw the torpedo at the front

of the ship on the starboard side,

and the other saw it
on the back of the ship

on the port side.

So it was one of these situations
whereby people see things,

but they're not really quite
sure what they've seen.

- Right.

So, if indeed it was a mine,

do we know that that area
of the sea had been mined?

- We do, as it happens.

There's this gentleman here.

Kapitan Gustav Siess.

He was the commander of
the German submarine U73.

She was a mine-laying submarine.

Three weeks before Britannic
hit the mine, he laid mines

in the exact same waters
where she went down.

- So you're saying it was
a mine, not a torpedo?

- Absolutely.

- Categorically?

- Categorically.

Bottom line, wrong place, wrong time.

(ticking)

- My first impression was
that we'd struck a mine

and would probably be safe.

- Captain Charles Bartlett is responsible

for the safety of the
1,065 souls on board.

He has 33 years' experience at sea,

so Britannic's crew should be safe.

His grandnephew, Richard Ellis,

might be able to help me judge

the captain's character and competence

thanks to stories passed
down from his father.

Did your father give you any idea

of what sort of man he was?

- Well, he was quite a large man.

17 stone.

- Wow!

- So he's a big man.

He was renowned for his caution.

He was a cautious captain.

But also, you know, a man in command.

If you were in his presence,

you knew that he was in command.

He was in control.

So what was his route up to

becoming captain of the Britannic?

- He joined the White Star Line,

he worked his way up
the ranks very quickly.

He captained some of their largest ships.

He then came onshore, he
was marine superintendent,

and in fact, he oversaw
the final fitting out

and the crewing of the Titanic.

- Oh, really?

- So he knew these big
ships enormously well.

- So given his experience, you know,

the fact that he actually oversaw

the kind of, final fitting
and crewing of the Titanic,

surely it would have made
sense if he'd been the captain?

- I think if the timing was
just very slightly different,

then a few months later,

he almost certainly would have
been captain of the Titanic.

And, you know, with his
cautious approach, you know,

the Titanic disaster
would never have happened.

That's what the wags would tell you.

- And when the Britannic was struck,

do you know, does history recall,

how Captain Bartlett reacted?

What he did?

- He was off duty, but he
raced up to the bridge,

he did what was needed to be done.

- SOS.

Have struck mine off Port
Nicholas, Kea island.

(ominous music)

- [Andy] This is the bridge

where Captain Bartlett stood that day.

Incredibly, the tiles
are still on the floor

from where the ship was steered.

Though it's becoming a man-made
reef, if you look carefully,

you can see the steering here underneath.

And if you rub a little,

you can still find the
glass of the Telegraph

that Captain Bartlett used

to send orders to the engine room.

But time has taken its toll.

It's only thanks the wood
and walls rotting away

that the most astonishingly intimate relic

has been revealed.

Captain Bartlett's bath tub.

He was the last man to sit in
it, and the plug is still in.

One story goes that he'd been in his tub

when the explosion sent him running,

in his pajamas, to the bridge.

- Emergency quarters were
sounded on all alarms

throughout the ship.

The engine stopped, and orders rung below

to close watertight doors.

I gave orders to clear away all boats

and have all possible
ready to be sent away.

(ticking)

- As one man, the whole of the
saloon rose from their seats.

Doctors and nurses
vanished to their posts,

men jumped over presses
with the agility of deer.

In seconds, not a soul was to be seen.

And not a sound had been uttered.

- Britannic's crew mirrors society

most men below deck are
considered the lower orders.

As medical staff like Violet
head to the lifeboats,

in the decks below,

men in the boiler rooms are
fighting incoming water.

Many of these men will die,

so the testimony of those who
survive is vital evidence.

When this explosion hit,

there must have been people
in those boiler rooms.

- The boiler rooms would
have been full, absolutely.

There would have been a couple of

hundred people down there working.

One gentleman in particular,

is a guy here by the name of Bert Smith.

Now, he was working in the
forward boiler room, number six,

when the explosion occurred.

The medical staff,
captain are away from it,

Bert was experiencing it first hand.

- Look at this.

This is amazing.

So he was right there.

- He was right there, he was right there.

- "Bert Smith groped his
way into the exit tunnel,

"his one route to possible safety.

"There he was met by the full weight

"of in rushing water which
pinned him against the boiler."

So the explosion had happened

and that water was then being,

effectively, funneled down that exit.

- [Male] Absolutely.

- That corridor.

- [Male] Like a tidal wave.

All coming in one direction.

Right up against Bert.

(rumbling)

- "Grabbing a handrail, he
was swept almost upside down

"in the salty torrent, then somehow

"he managed to scramble up a 90-foot

"staircase to the boat deck."

That's an amazing story.

- He was a very lucky man.

- Well, sort of.

So Bert and these people down below

knew exactly what was happening

and would have had a very, very good sense

of the very real danger this ship was in,

whereas the nurses and Captain Bartlett,

way up in the posh bits,
wouldn't have known at all.

But it's only the
upstairs staff like Violet

who can tell me how well
the captain is managing.

And let's not forget,

Violet's already been
through this on Titanic.

This time though, she wants
to be a bit better prepared.

- I sorted out things to take.

The things I treasured the most.

There was my prayer book
(sirens)

and my toothbrush.

Ned's ring, and my clock, of course.

- [Kate] Incredibly,
that clock has outlasted

both Violet and Britannic.

Is this the clock?

- Yeah.

- What an extraordinary keepsake.

I can't believe she had
the presence of mind,

when the ship is going down,

to go down to her cabin
and fill her pockets.

But it sounds like that's
quite typical of her character,

would you say so?

- Yes.

I think it is.

Also, her brothers had told her,

"don't forget your toothbrush!"

- I stuffed all sorts of
things into my pockets.

Even a roll from the breakfast table.

- [Andy] Up on the
bridge, Captain Bartlett

has no idea how much water has come in.

Britannic's watertight boiler rooms should

prevent her taking on water.

But she's sinking, and fast.

Three miles from Kea island,

he decides he must beach the ship.

- Steering gear appeared to have failed.

So I turned the ship to port to head

for land by the engines.

- [Andy] But as Britannic
pushes towards shore,

she continues to sink.

- The forward holds filled up rapidly

and water was reported in numbers
five and six boiler rooms.

- But why?

Bartlett has ordered

the watertight doors to
the boiler room shut,

no more sea water should get in.

But stoker Bert Mills has told us

that water is flooding through
the boiler room corridors

could the explanation lie right here

inside the corridor to the boiler rooms?

But I can't go in.

It's so frustrating.

Britannic's interior is so dangerous,

the Greek government has now banned

anyone from going inside.

But two of our dive team did
get inside her before the ban.

Evan Kovacs took the dangerous
path through the boiler

room corridor also known
as the Fireman's Tunnel

to try and confirm if the watertight

safety doors were fully closed.

Evan, what did you see
that very first time

you went into the wreck?

- We traveled down the Fireman's Tunnel

and eventually we got
to the watertight door.

That was open.

Through the next set of
boilers and then that opens up,

and that's where we saw the
other watertight door, open.

Fully open, not even partially closed.

- What this means is
that as Captain Bartlett

is steaming full speed,
trying to get to quay

to save his ship, in effect
he is actually ramming

more of the water, forcing
more water into these boiler

rooms and flooding the ship even quicker.

- So why do you think the
watertight doors didn't close?

- Now, it's been a mystery
for nearly 100 years.

We know that Captain
Bartlett threw the switches

to electrically close the door,
maybe the wires were broken.

Engineers believe that the explosion

twisted the ship, and that prevented,

or wedged the doors, and
wouldn't allow them to close.

- [Andy] So maybe it
was a technical error.

But Ritchie suspects the
all too human behavior

of the boiler room workers.

These men were not trained sailors.

- They were referred to as the black gang,

and you would have stokers and firemen,

trimmers and people that just had to work

in an incredibly unforgiving environment.

I mean, can you imagine it,

being at the very bottom of the ship

with the lights flickering

and a gush of water coming in
through that fireman's tunnel?

And you have seconds to make decisions.

Am I going to sit here and try to

monkey around with this door?

Or am I going to run for my life?

(solemn music)

- [Andy] Some people wouldn't
blame them for running.

But even if they did,

it doesn't make the sinking
of Britannic their fault.

She was so well engineered,

she should stay afloat a
lot longer than 55 minutes,

even with this many compartments flooded.

- [Kate] Nurse Sheila Macbeth's
family point the finger

far higher up the social ladder towards

one of the ship's doctors.

- Somebody had opened all the portholes

on both sides of the ship,
so as to ventilate the wards,

in which there were, in fact,

no patients requiring ventilation.

Now, who this doctor was
who had given these orders,

nobody by now will ever know.

Nobody has ever come forward
and said, "It was me."

But we have it.

It happened.

And it shouldn't.

The ship should have been unsinkable.

It should have beached
on the island of Kea

with no casualties whatsoever.

(ticking)

- We didn't get any inrush
of water where we were.

That seemed to be in the
forward part of the ship.

As the list grew worse

we knew what was happening.

- [Kate] The unknown sailor
knew one thing for sure.

Despite the claims that this ship,

like her sister could never sink,

a terrible domino effect was now in play

that would pull Britannic down.

- No-one on board imagined she'd go down

as quickly as she did.

- With the doors open, water rushed down

the fireman's passage and
flooded boiler room six.

From there, it spread through
another set of open doors

into boiler room five and now

the whole fore part of
the ship is flooded.

And as the ship sank, it
was listing to starboard,

and with water rushing through
the portholes on E deck,

the ship's fate was sealed.

(ticking)

- [Kate] But why will Britannic suffer

such terrible loss of life?

Unlike her sister, Titanic,
there are plenty of lifeboats.

And by 8:36am,

most of the crew were up on
deck ready to board them.

- We were kept hanging
over the side of the boat

for a long while, as the vice captain,

who was looking after the
lowering of the boats,

had to dash off in the
middle to call back some 14

or 15 fireman who'd gone
off from the poop deck

in a boat that should have
held about 84 persons.

- [Kate] No lifeboat should be released

without the captain's orders.

But Sheila sees some
of the boiler room gang

jump into a boat and set off early.

- They were desperate to
get away, but, of course,

they were the masters of
their own fate because

the "abandon ship" command
had not been given.

Frankly, you would have
expected officers to have

stopped it, but clearly they
were unable to prevent these

men, sort of, grabbing the
boats, if you like, and going.

- [Kate] Meanwhile, Captain
Bartlett is trying to save

Britannic by driving her
hard towards Kea island.

He has no idea several dozen of the crew

have already launched their lifeboats.

- He would never have expected
anyone to be in the water,

because he had not given
the "abandon ship" command.

And he is the only person, as
captain, who could do that.

So he had the right to expect that

nobody would be in the water.

They should not have been there.

- There's a couple of things
that I want clarified.

The first is that I thought lifeboats

could only be released from a ship

on the orders of a captain.

- Yes, that's right.

- So how on earth could
Captain Bartlett be unaware

that there were lifeboats in the water?

- The initial order, after the explosion

was to uncover the boats, to fill them,

and to lower them over the side.

No order was given to release the boats.

- So how did they end up being released

without his authority?

- It could have been part of the chaos,

confusion that was going on.

We do know that a couple of
boats went away off the stern

without permission and
had to be called back.

It depended where your officers were.

A degree of control was lost in places.

- [Kate] People were in a panic.

- Maybe in a panic, yeah.

- And what state was the
ship in at this time?

- At this stage, very serious.

She's increasingly listing to starboard

on the right-hand side.

As she moves forward, she's flooding

so fast in the bow that the stern

is now beginning to rise up.

As a result, the poor propeller is now

working above the surface.

(ticking)

- [Kate] As the propeller rises,

it pulls towards it the
lifeboats already in the water.

- [Andy] I'm now approaching
that very propeller.

23 feet of enormous spinning power.

- [Kate] Meanwhile,
Violet is hanging above,

in a lifeboat suspended
off the side of the ship.

She can see the propellers turning.

- Just at that moment, a
lifeboat caught my eye.

It had been lowered safely to the water

but then drifted with sudden impetus,

resisting the efforts of skilled oarsmen,

right into those cruel, swirling blades.

- It was cutting the
poor fellows to pieces.

There was legs, arms, and
bodies flying everywhere.

What made it so bad,

the blades, they were
half out of the water.

So they were coming
down right on the boat.

(faint screaming)

- Eyes were looking with
horror at the debris.

(solemn music)

And the red streaks all over the water.

- [Kate] Up on the bridge,
Captain Bartlett is unaware

of the tragedy unfolding
at the back of the ship.

He has not yet given the official order

to release the lifeboats.

Violet, Archie, and many of
the crew are about to find

themselves fighting for their lives.

- The ship started listing to starboard

as our lifeboat began to lower.

A young sea scout near me took
a deep breath as he got in,

he was only a kid.

- [Kate] So tell me a little
bit about this sea scout.

- Well, that little sea
scout was George Perman.

He was 15 at the time.

He was one of the lift operators on board,

and he was very fortunate to be on duty,

because his quarters were actually

destroyed in the explosion.

So he ran to the lifeboats and got in,

and I managed to speak
with him in the late '90s.

This is what he said.

- [George] I made my way to the top deck,

and on my way to my lifeboat,

I was given this life belt.

And lowered into the water.

- His first shock came as our lifeboat,

hooking itself onto an
open porthole, tilted us,

then righting itself again,

started gliding rapidly down

making a terrible impact upon the water.

(loud splashing)

After we touched the water,

I turned around to see how
my small friend had taken

the impact only to find him
halfway up the ship's sides

still attached to the rope.

- Violet was beckoning
him to come into the sea

before it was too late,

so he lowered himself down into the water,

nothing worse really than
bad burns on his hands,

but George was very
psychologically scarred

for the rest of his life.

He saw the red blood being
flecked against the side

of the white ship, and
they always thought,

George's family, although
they were quite tall people,

George never really grew very
much and they believed that

his growth had been stunted
by the shock of what he saw.

- So George is in this red,

blood-filled water, I mean,

it's unimaginable what
that must have been like.

Violet, she's still in
the lifeboat, is she?

- She's still in the lifeboat.

She's surrounded by this
scene of complete carnage.

Blood everywhere, hacked
bodies in the water.

It must have been very traumatic for her.

(ticking)

- [Kate] In Violet's lifeboat,
it's every man for himself.

Deciding they have more
chance trying to swim for it,

one by one, her companions
dive into the water.

- Fumbling hands, struggling,
unsuccessfully to get control.

Every man jack in the
group of surrounding boats

took a flying leap into the sea

taking to the water like
a vast army of rats.

(ominous music)

It was extraordinary to find
myself, within a few minutes,

almost the only occupant of the boat.

One man, a doctor,

was standing in the silence beside me.

I turned around

and saw Britannic's huge blades churning

and mincing everything
near them men, boats,

everything was just one ghastly whirl.

In another moment, I would
be under those blades.

Unless...

I have always been afraid of the water.

I'd not learned to swim.

Then I just jumped
overboard down and down into

bottomless depths,
clutching at my life belt.

"Why had I put it on over my coat?"

was one thought, as I felt its weight

dragging me down deeper.

I kept my eyes tightly closed.

And held my breath.

- [Kate] The only hope for Archie's boat

is to stay tethered to Britannic.

- I shouted out not to let go of the boat.

But someone let her go.

And away we went, right
towards the blades.

So I shouted, "jump overboard,"

and most of us jumped in the water but,

it was no good.

It was pulled right in under the blades.

- [Kate] Violet is now trapped beneath

the shattered lifeboat,

surrounded by dismembered body parts.

- I myself felt rising,
and my head came into

violent contact with something solid.

Something that prevented me
from reaching the surface.

(loud explosion)

There was another terrific crash above me.

And something struck the back of my head.

My brain shook.

Panic seized me,

and I groped blindly in that water.

There was a thundering center of noise.

Suddenly,

I touched something.

An arm,

that moved as mine moved.

My fingers gripped it like a vice.

Until my almost senseless head
remembered that it is said

that people drowning retain
their hold after death

bringing death to another.

I let go.

(ominous music)

- [Kate] As Violet disappears under water,

Archie is pulled under the propeller.

- Archie could hear the
blades swirling above him,

and he goes on to write,

"The last thing I heard was
the blades hit the boat,

"and I closed my eyes and
said goodbye to this world".

- But I was struck by a
big piece of the boat,

and I went under the blades,

and I was going around like a top.

And, when I came up again,

I came up under some wreckage.

And I couldn't get clear.

And everything was going black
to me when someone on top

who was struggling
pushed the wreckage away,

and I came up just in time.

I was almost done for.

There was water coming out of my nose.

And my mouth.

There was this poor fellow drowning.

He caught hold of me,

(solemn music)

but I had to shrug him off.

So the poor fellow went under.

- I was sinking.

My life belt was not
sufficient to support me.

I saw another floating by.

So I grabbed at it.

At last I had something to hold on to.

- [Kate] And just in time,

Violet bursts upwards.

The first thing my eyes
beheld was a head near me.

A head split open like a sheep's
head served by the butcher.

All around were limbs,

wrenched out as if some giant
had torn them in his rage.

The dead floated by so peacefully.

There were men coming up only to go

down again for the last time.

A look of frightful horror on their faces.

(solemn music)

- Captain Bartlett stopped the propellers.

But only because Britannic
had started sinking faster.

He knew nothing of the
bloodbath in the water.

Do we know now how many people died?

- We do, there were 30.

Nine of them were from the medical corps,

so they weren't actually ship's crew.

The rest were ship's crew,

but the majority of them were from what

was known as the black gang.

They were stokers, firemen,

who had come up from below
decks when the water entered.

- So these men whose jobs
were to be right in the bowels

of the ship, who were right
there when the mine struck,

reacted in, probably, the
only way they possibly could.

Sheer blind panic and survival kicking in

to get them out of that place

where the water was flooding in,

only to end up going to their deaths

by a very human mistake.

- It was.

It was just a totally
unnecessary loss of life,

because if procedures had been followed,

it should not have happened.

But you can understand,
in the chaos and panic,

particularly coming up from below decks,

it's understandable that people
want to get off the ship.

But, of course, that was actually
what led to their deaths.

- [Kate] As a nurse,
Sheila must stay on duty

amidst the carnage.

In our boat, we'd got well
away from the sinking ship,

and busied ourselves with the wounded

whom we'd pulled out of the water.

Our brandy flasks were invaluable.

Also, aprons and pillowcases
which were torn up as bandages.

- [Kate] Finally, Captain Bartlett gives

the order to abandon ship.

- Our chief engineer, Mr Fleming,

who was cool through everything

was the last of our
department to join us on deck.

He had to swim for it,

narrowly escaping being drowned.

- The ship was sinking very quickly then,

going by the head and
listing to starboard.

Soon the water came to the bridge.

- At 9 am, 48 minutes after the explosion,

Bartlett reports that he
and his two senior officers

are still standing on the bridge.

There is nothing more the captain can do.

As with Titanic, would
he go down with his ship?

I've heard that it is a captain's duty

to be the last one to abandon ship,

is that true?

- Absolutely.

That's the traditional way.

And that's what happened.

He ordered his officers to
leave the bridge, they left,

he blew the whistle for one last time,

and then he literally walked
off the ship into the sea.

- Assistant Commander Dyke,

having reported to me that all had left,

I told him to go

and shortly after, followed myself,

walking into the water

by the forward boat gantry,
on the starboard side.

(solemn music)

(ticking)

- Moments later, the
bridge was underwater.

(dramatic music)

With sounds wailing and gurgling,
Britannic sank bow first.

(loud thud)

But she was so massive,

that when she hit bottom,
her stern was sticking

over 30 meters out of the water.

(dramatic music)

- With a final roar

she disappeared into the depths.

The noise of her going
resounding through the water

with undreamt-of violence.

- At 9:07 am, Great Britain's largest

and finest ship of World War I is gone.

It's taken just 55 minutes to sink

the most unsinkable ship in the world.

Britannic joined her sister,
Titanic, on the seabed

where she has lain for 100 years.

Well, that is certainly something.

The most impressive ship
wreck I have ever seen.

You can peer in through windows,

and you see the medical
room with the equipment

where the doctors and the
nurses would have worked

and those injured soldiers
would have been treated.

And it's these glimpses of humanity

that act as a reminder
that it's the people

and their stories that are so

closely interwoven with the
story of Britannic itself.

- [Kate] Those who died
on Britannic met terrible,

violent ends.

But while Titanic's passengers
and crew froze to death

in the icy north Atlantic,
waiting for rescue that came

far too late, Britannic sank
much closer to the shore,

allowing a fleet of Greek fishing

boats and three British destroyers

to come to her crew's rescue.

The largest number of losses
came from the black gang

at the bottom of the ship

and the bottom of the social ladder.

1,035 of Britannic's nurses,

sailors and doctors survived.

(fast paced music)

- A sailor pulled a chair from the water

and gave me a piece of the back,

which I guarded safely, under my coat.

And here it is.

- [Kate] No way!

- Absolutely.

- She didn't keep that
for the whole of her life?

Can I see it?

- [Male] She kept it
the whole of her life.

She gave it to my father.

My father gave it to me.

I keep it in my living room.

- What an amazing story!

Sheila lived to be 103,

and towards the end of her life,

she featured in a documentary

about the discovery of
the Britannic wreck.

- So at the age of 86,

she helicoptered off from Athens to Kea.

She takes this back with her,

so back goes the chair top to the island.

And off she goes, submarining.

- No way!

- To see the wreck of the Britannic.

She has a look inside it,

and then she put flowers into
the water above the wreck.

And then, of course,

a few years later, James
Cameron directed Titanic.

- [Kate] That's right.

- And you remember the
incident there of Rose

throwing flowers--

- [Kate] Yes, the older lady

whose story is being told.

- So we always say, in our family,

that Rose was built, as a character,

upon my grandmother.

(solemn music)

- [Kate] And what of Captain Bartlett,

who may have just missed
being captain of Titanic?

(giggling)

- Our commander was retrieved

from the waters in his pajamas.

His face as unperturbed as ever.

- He was swimming in the water
for about 30 minutes or so,

before he was picked up
by one of the lifeboats.

It was only then that he was told

about the tragic and
unnecessary loss of life.

- Do we know how he felt

when he made this terrible discovery?

- I think he was immensely sad about it,

because it should not have happened.

If those men had not panicked
and been in the boats,

there would have been
no life lost whatsoever.

And if, in fact, if the nurses
hadn't opened the portholes

to air the cabins, you know,

he would have managed to
save that ship as well.

But he did not sail a ship again.

- [Kate] No one left Britannic unaffected.

- When I tried to stand,

I discovered that my leg had been

deeply torn and badly gashed.

I had not felt it happen.

All I had been conscious of underwater

was my head being battered,

almost to a pulp.

- She didn't realize at the
time she had this terrible blow

on her head, but she
fractured it in two places.

But I know she had very

troubling time with her head later

and the strange result was
that she lost her hair later.

- Really?

- [Old Lady] I think it's a stress thing.

- [Kate] Despite experiencing
the horror of both the Titanic

and Britannic disasters,

Violet never did lose
her taste for adventure.

She did marry, once, rather briefly.

But she was a ship stewardess
for her whole working life,

visiting every corner of the globe.

- I do remember, when I was four,

and going to her house
always scared me a bit

because she had an alligator,

a stuffed alligator
hanging by the staircase.

I used to look at that going upstairs.

- [Kate] I can imagine!

- She brought it from South America.

- [Kate] What happened next to Archie?

- When Archie was picked
up with the wounded,

he then goes on to write,

"I could not feel my legs and arms

"when they got me into the boat".

- There was this one sailor,
he was with me in the boat,

his legs were nearly cut off.

They picked him up, but
he didn't live long.

- So Archie survived the Britannic,

he'd survived the Titanic,

he was 27 years old.

What did he go on to do next?

- He went on to work on
another hospital ship,

a smaller vessel called the SS Donegal.

And he was on it for just five months

before it was struck by a torpedo

and he died on the 17th April,
1917, and he was just 28.

(solemn music)

- As for the unnamed seaman from Ulster,

we have no trace of what happened
to him after the sinking.

He's disappeared from history,

a bit like Titanic's
tragic twin, Britannic.

Well, we've listened to the
testimonies of our witnesses,

we've amassed the evidence,

and it seems that Britannic sank because

of bad luck and human error.

And the people who lost their
lives alongside her did so

because in their desperation to survive,

they made a decision
with fatal consequences.

But there's one other puzzling factor.

Why has a story as dramatic as this

remained unknown for so long?

Well, think about the timing.

It was 100 years ago,

the tragedy of the
Britannic was just one more

in the monumental tragedy
that was World War I.

(solemn music)