RMS Olympic: Titanic's Older Twin That Rammed and Sank a U-Boat in 1918

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The RMS Olympic was White Star Line's answer to Cunard's fast Lusitania and Mauretania. Unable to afford the coal to beat them on speed, J. Bruce Ismay's company, backed by J.P. Morgan, bet on size and luxury and gave Harland and Wolff in Belfast a cost plus five percent contract. Known in the yard as hull 400, she was launched in 1910 with her hull painted pale gray for the press photos, and offered a Louis XVI restaurant, a Turkish bath, a squash court, a pool, and private cabins even in third class. On her fifth voyage in September 1911, under Captain Edward Smith, suction from her turn in the Solent dragged the cruiser HMS Hawke into her side. Repairing her used parts from the unfinished Titanic and pushed her sister's maiden voyage into April 1912.

On April 14, 1912, the Olympic was about 505 miles away when she heard Titanic's distress call. Captain Herbert Haddock raced toward the site, but the Carpathia's captain told her to stay away so survivors would not have to board a mirror image of the ship that sank. Rotten collapsible lifeboats then sparked a strike by 284 firemen, and 54 sailors arrested for mutiny were discharged without penalty. A 1912 to 1913 refit added an inner skin and raised her bulkheads to B deck. In May 1918, in dazzle camouflage and packed with American troops, Captain Bertram Hayes rammed and sank U-103, the only known case of a passenger liner sinking an enemy warship in the First World War.

• She rescued the crew of the mined battleship HMS Audacious in 1914 and was held at Lough Swilly to keep the loss secret.
• Troops nicknamed her Old Reliable after she carried more than 200,000 of them and survived a torpedo that failed to explode.
• Converting from coal to oil in 1919 cut her engine room crew from 350 men to 60.
• A 16 year old Archibald Leach, later Cary Grant, made his first trip to America aboard her.
• In May 1934 she sliced the Nantucket lightship in half in fog, and parts of her interiors survive in the White Swan Hotel in Alnwick.