Please read Part 1 of this post before continuing, Thanks!

July of 1914 saw the start of the first world war and a wrench thrown in the gears of Transatlantic shipping. Olympic was sailing west to New York in August when she got word of Britians imminent declaration of war against Germany. She was advised to dim her lights and stay in a friendly port. Olympic would, however, perform three more crossings despite the U-Boat danger in order to ferry citizens of England and the USA home before the coming conflict.

Then in October of 1914, Olympic was requisitioned by the British Admiralty to be a troop ship and was sent to her makers; Harland and Wolfe, to undergo a 10-month conversion. When she was finished, she was designated ship 2,810 and began her war service transporting troops to the Mediterranean to support the Gallipoli Campaign. She would then be requested by the Canadian Government to transport Canadian troops to Europe. Here she would earn her nickname ‘Old Reliable’ sailing thousands of Canadian Troops to the European theater and narrowly missing the Halifax Explosion of December 1917 by 5 days. She was initially tasked to sail in a convoy on these voyages, but her Captain argued that she would be safer sailing at full speed rather than slowly in a convoy. Thus she continued to make daring Transatlantic voyages alone throughout the war. Even going as far as to not allow smoking at night as to prohibit the faint glow of the cigarette giving away her position to German U-boats.

Then in the last year of the war, Olympic was called on again to ferry American Troops across the Atlantic taking her first batch of Americans to Europe on January 12^th, 1918. It was here in the last year of the war where Olympic would see her two closest calls. First in April of 1918 Olympic was heading to New York when she was sighted and torpedoed by  German U-53. While one of these torpedoes hit Olympics side, it failed to go off and Olympic completed her voyage narrowly avoiding ending up like her two sisters on the seafloor. Funny enough the event went unknown at the time and was only discovered after the war when a torpedo-sized hole was found in her side which had not penetrated her second hull. This would not be Olympics only run-in with a U-Boat however. On the return Voyage of that same trip, Olymic spotted U-103 while entering the English Channel and quickly moved to ram the submarine, ultimately sinking it. Finally, the war ended shortly after this incident and Olympic ferried thousands of Canadian troops back home transporting over 132,000 troops during the war.

Then with the war over Olympic was finally allowed to return to passenger service alone as her sister Britannic was sunk by a mine during the war. She would enjoy another 15 years of successful sailing being adored by the masses, rich, and famous alike. Unfortunately, by the break of the Great Depression Olympics age was beginning to catch up to her and she was quickly becoming outdated compared to the new liners of the time. Her last notable accident came on May 15, 1934, when she was approaching New York in heavy fog and ended up plowing into the Nantucket Light Ship slicing it in two and sinking it. This accident and the merger of Cunard and White Star Line in 1934 sealed Olympics’ fate as she was simply seen as too old and unprofitable to continue service. Thus on March 27^th, 1935 Olympic sailed her last transatlantic voyage and was sent to the breakers a few weeks later. Below is the last known photo of Olympic (stern) at the breakers down to only her bottom hull and keel.

In the end, Olympic sailed 257 transatlantic round trip voyages, transported 430,000 passengers commercially, traveled 1.8 million miles (Olympic Wikipedia), and was instrumental in the transport of troops during WWI. She had a long and fruitful career, unfortunately without her two sisters. She served her company and country well and ultimately lived up to her nickname ‘Old Reliable’.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this 2 part post about RMS Olympic. As always feel free to leave any comments or questions below and have a wonderful day!