War On the High Seas

    The Olympic was at sea on 4 August 1914, when Great Britain declared war on Germany, on her way to New York.  At New York, she was painted in naval gray and she headed back towards Liverpool.  This time, instead of passengers crowding her decks, there was coal.

   Transatlantic service continued for awhile, mainly for those who wished to escape from Europe.  As traffic of this sort phased out, it was decided that Olympic would be laid up in Belfast at the end of October 1914.

    On the home leg of her last commercial service during the war under Captain Haddock, Olympic met up with the 2nd Squadron of the Royal Navy off the coast of Scotland.  One of the ships, the H.M.S. Audacious, had struck a mine and was taking on water.  Captain Haddock decided to stop and tow the stricken battleship to land because all the other ships had fled in fear of U-boats.  In retrospect, this may have been a rather stupid thing to do, as the still Olympic would have been a huge sitting duck for any submarine that was nearby.  However, luck was on Olympic's side and all of Audacious' crew were safely transferred to Olympic.  As for the Audacious herself, the tow lines between her and Olympic continually parted in the rough seas, and ended when the battleship's magazines exploded, sending her to the bottom.

    Olympic was then diverted to Belfast instead of Liverpool where her passengers would disembark, and everything was done so that the knowledge that Audacious had sunk would be kept a secret.  Photos of the event were even confiscated.  Soon after, Olympic was laid up for ten months and then chartered by the Admiralty as a troopship.  Four weeks were spent removing the sybaritic fittings meant for the complement of 2,500 civilians to be replaced by austere surroundings for 6,000 troops.  In October of 1915, under command of Captain Hayes, Olympic left Belfast for the Dardanelles Campaign that was going on in the Eastern Mediterranean.  Meeting her there would be the Cunarders Aquitania and Mauretania, Compagnie Generale Transatlatique's France (II), and the third of the Olympic Class, dear sister Britannic.  Cunard's Lusitania was noticeably absent from the scene because she had been torpedoed and sunk while transporting passengers in May of that year.

    At the beginning of 1916, troops had withdrawn from Gallipoli to join the Western Front in France and Belgium, and Olympic was no longer of use in the Aegean.  To join the Allied troops on the Western Front were people from all over the British Empire.  A great number of volunteers came from Canada, but there was no means to get them across the pond.  Olympic was chartered to be their means of transportation, and operations began in March 1916.   However, this time she was no longer a matron in gray, but a lady decorated in war-paint, or as it was called, "dazzle-paint," developed by maritime painter Norman Wilkinson, the same person who had created the paintings in the smoking rooms of both Olympic and Titanic.

    Captain Hayes was offered the option of being escorted across the Atlantic, but to do so would cut off 10 knots from Olympic's top speed, which at 22 knots, would be pretty hard for a submarine to catch up to.  All of Olympic's voyages between Liverpool and Halifax were carried out alone and into 1917 without incident, earning her the nickname of "Old Reliable."

    The United States entered World War 1 in April of 1917, but Olympic would be serving Canadian troops until she finally returned to New York on Christmas Day of 1917.  This time she would be carrying American troops to war.  Germans had targeted her on four occasions, and all missed on their torpedoes.

    Olympic approached the Scilly Isles on 18 May 1918 after being escorted across the ocean by American destroyers and spotted a German submarine off the starboard bow.  the submarine had not noticed the ship until the liner began opening fire at them.  The German U-boat, which was planning to retaliate, realized that they were going to be crushed by the oncoming knife-like prow, dived immediately.  Immediately was not fast enough.  The submarine was first nailed by the ship's bow and then shredded open by one of Olympic's screws far astern.  Olympic escaped with minimal damage.  Some of the American soldiers collected money for a plaque commemorating the event that would hang on her staircase in her later years.

    Olympic continued on these troop transport missions until the Armistice of November 1918 until she was again chartered by the Canadian Government, and spent ten months ferrying troops back home.  Olympic would not be ready for refitting until August of 1919.  Olympic was the record holder carrying the most troops on a British ship (6,148), one of the big four that ferried most of the troops, others being the British Mauretania, Aquitania, and American Leviathan, née Hamburg-Amerika's Vaterland.  Olympic alone carried 66,000 troops thoughout the war, 41,000 civilians, steamed over 184,000 miles, and consumed 347,000 tons of coal.

    An inspection of her hull revealed a dent in the outer hull that left an outer compartment flooded, undoubtedly caused by a torpedo that had luckily failed to go off.  Her fittings were put back in place and her boilers were moderized to feed on oil, reducing the amount of stokers from over 350 down to 60.  The years ahead would be among White Star's most profitable years ever.  Unfortunately, Britannic would not be joining her in transatlantic service.  She had suffered from an explosion in the Aegean in November of 1916 and sank in 55 minutes, before she ever had the chance to let the world know who she was.  She would never see a fare paying pasenger.