RMS Olympic
 The Olympic 1911 in New York
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The RMS Olympic ( English : [ʊˈlɪ̃mpɪk] ) of the shipping company White Star Line was the first and eponymous type ship of the Olympic class and thus sister ship of the Titanic and the Britannic . Mainly because of her military service, she was later nicknamed "Old Reliable" (in German "old reliable").
Construction of the Olympic (hull number 400) at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast began a good three months before the Titanic (hull number 401: keel laid on March 31, 1909). Later a second sister ship, the Britannic , was built at Harland and Wolff (hull number 433: keel laid on November 30, 1911).
history
The keel was laid on December 16, 1908. The Olympic was completed on May 29, 1911 and handed over to the White Star Line on May 31, 1911, directly after the Titanic was launched .
On June 14, 1911, the Olympic started under the command of Captain Edward John Smith , who later commanded the Titanic , on her maiden voyage from Southampton via Cherbourg and Queenstown to New York . Already in September 1911 she had a serious collision with the British cruiser Hawke , which required an expensive three-month repair. This delayed the completion and maiden voyage of the Titanic by three weeks.
The Olympic was on her way back to Europe when she received the distress call of her sister ship Titanic . Although she drove towards the scene of the accident at top speed, she was out of range due to the distance of around 500 nautical miles (or 20 hours). After the Titanic disaster, she was equipped with additional lifeboats, reinforced bulkheads and a double outer skin.
During the First World War , the Olympic served as a troop transport ship from 1914 to 1918. Two war events worth mentioning date back to October 1914, when she drove undamaged through a minefield to help the sinking battleship Audacious , and on May 12, 1918, when the German submarine U 103 was sighted about 500 meters away . Obviously, the submarine crew had not noticed the steamer in time to get into the optimal attack position and had to fall back on the rear torpedo tubes, which were not ready to fire in time. Captain Hayes let the Olympic take course on U 103 , which tried to save itself with an emergency diving maneuver. But the steamer rammed the boat, its port propeller pierced the pressure hull, whereupon U 103 sank. Ten German submarine drivers were killed, 35 men survived and were later picked up by a US ship.
After serving in the war, the Olympic was converted back into a liner in 1919 . As with many large steamers , their boilers were converted to oil firing, which not only enabled faster bunkering , but also saved a lot of staff. After that a successful time began for the Olympic .
Very popular and fashionable in the 1920s, it had many rich and famous passengers on board, including Charlie Chaplin , Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and Prince Edward , then Prince of Wales . One of the things that made her attractive was that she was confusingly similar to the Titanic .
On May 22, 1924, the Olympic collided with the liner Fort St. George near New York . Later she had on 15 May 1934 its only fatal accident than those which in dense fog Nantucket - Lightship rammed. The lightship sank, killing seven of the eleven crew members.
In February 1926, the Olympic in the North Atlantic was hit by a monster wave , which caused numerous damage, including four destroyed bridge windows (usually about 24 meters above sea level).
The ships of the line were also affected by the global economic crisis at the end of the 1920s. In particular, the White Star Line, whose management was more risk-taking and never fully recovered from the Titanic disaster, found itself in financial difficulties. In 1934 the British government forced a merger with the competing Cunard Line . The management of the shipping group then began selling all old express steamers to finance the construction of the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth . In view of the economic situation and the age of the ship, politicians brokered the sale of the Olympic to a scrap yard near Jarrow (north-east England) in order to alleviate the high unemployment there. Her official last trip ended on April 12, 1935, coming from New York in Southampton . By then, she had crossed the Atlantic 257 times, carrying 430,000 passengers commercially and covering 1.8 million nautical miles .
On October 11, 1935, after a two-day drive, she reached Jarrow, where, among other things, the interior was expanded over the next two years. Numerous furnishings were sold at auctions. The hull was towed to Inverkeithing (Scotland) and broken up there .
Many of the furnishings that have been preserved enjoy great public interest to this day due to the cult of the Titanic . For example, large parts of the wood paneling, the furnishings in the first-class salon, handrails and wooden panels on the staircase of the Olympic and a marble fireplace were installed in the White Swan Hotel in Alnwick , UK .
The walnut panels of the wood paneling from the à la carte restaurant were initially installed in a British private house. The American shipping company Celebrity Cruises later acquired the parts at an auction of the Sotheby’s auction house . You are now in the Olympic restaurant on the Celebrity Millennium cruise ship .
The famous Honor and Glory Crowning Time clock from the stairwell, identical to the one from the Titanic, is in the SeaCity Museum in Southampton .
Marble fireplace from the RMS Olympic at the White Swan Hotel
Stained glass window from the RMS Olympic at the White Swan Hotel
Technical specifications
The following dates changed from 1911 to 1933 as a result of renovations:
-
Gross register tons :
- 1911: 45.324
- 1933: 46.439
-
Net register tons
- 1911: 20.894
- 1933: 20.994
-
Passengers :
- 1911: 2,584
- 1933: 1,447
Captains
| No. | Surname | Years |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Edward John Smith | 1911-1912 |
| 2 | Herbert James Haddock | 1912-1914 |
| 3 | Bertram Fox Hayes | 1915-1922 |
| 4th | Alex Hambleton | 1922-1923 |
| 5 | Hugh David | 1923 |
| 6th | JB Howarth | 1923-1925 |
| 7th | William Marshall | 1925-1928 |
| 8th | Walter Henry Parker | 1928-1929 |
| 9 | ER White | 1930-1932 |
| 10 | John Binks | 1932-1934 |
| 11 | Reginald Peel | 1934-1935 |
| 12 | PV Vaughan | 1935 |
literature
- Robert D. Ballard , Ken Marschall : Lost Liners - From the Titanic to Andrea Doria - the glory and decline of the great luxury liners . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag GmbH & Co., Munich 1997, ISBN 3-453-12905-9 (English: Lost Liners: From the Titanic to the Andrea Doria. The ocean floor reveals its greatest lost ships. Translated by Helmut Gerstberger).
- Mark Chirnside: RMS Olympic - Titanic's Sister. Tempus Publishing, 2004, ISBN 0-7524-3148-X (English).
- Simon Mills: RMS Olympic - The Old Reliable. Waterfront Publications, 1993, ISBN 0-946184-79-8 (English).
- Wolf-Christian Nerger: Olympic, Titanic, Britannic. Chronology of the three White Star Line sister ships . Klages, Hannover 1998, ISBN 3-7813-9801-4 ( formally incorrect ) .
- Nils Schwerdtner. Dieter Krone (Ed.): RMS "Olympic" . The legendary sister ship of the »Titanic«. Krone, Leichlingen 2000, ISBN 3-933241-17-0 .
Web links
- Olympic ( Memento of February 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) is an English language site with access to a picture gallery and links to further information.
- RMS Olympic - The Old Reliable ( Memento of October 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) also offers many pictures from postcard collections.
- Web presence of the White Swan Hotel in Alnwick ( memento from March 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), in which parts of the wall and ceiling cladding, windows and parts of the stairwell of the Olympic are installed.
Footnotes
- ↑ Kemp, Paul: The German and Austrian submarine losses in both world wars . Urbes Publishing House. Graefelfing near Munich 1998, p. 49.
- ↑ Mark Chirnside: The 'Olympic' Class Ships . The History Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-7524-5895-3 , pp. 112-113 .
- ↑ Wyn Craig Wade: The Titanic: End of a Dream. Penguin Books, 1986, ISBN 0-14-016691-2 .
- ↑ Mark Chirnside: The 'Olympic' Class Ships . The History Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-7524-5895-3 , pp. 117 .
- ^ History of US Lightships. Palletmastersworkshop.com, accessed July 16, 2009 .
- ^ Lightship bell raised from ocean's depths: 9/3 / 2004. Southcoasttoday.com, archived from the original on October 10, 2004 ; Retrieved July 16, 2009 .
- ↑ de best bron van information over night beacon. The website is cooperative! nightbeacon.com, accessed February 29, 2012 .
- ^ White Star Line Archives - 1931. Chriscunard.com, archived from the original on July 19, 2008 ; Retrieved July 16, 2009 .
- ↑ RMS Olympic: Another Premature Death? - Mark Chirnside - encyclopaedia-titanica.org
- ↑ Arturo Paniagua Mazorra: Celebrity Cruises' "Millennium". Retrieved May 2, 2011 .