Artifacts recovered from Titanic’s sister ship sunk on way to Dardanelles

ANKARA

Archaeologists have recovered the first objects from the wreck of HMHS Britannic, the sister ship of the Titanic, which sank in the Aegean Sea during World War I while heading toward the Dardanelles.

Greece’s Culture Ministry announced that a team of professional deep-sea divers retrieved objects from the site off the Greek island of Kea, where the British hospital ship struck a German mine on Nov. 21, 1916.

This discovery also serves as a vivid reminder of a significant chapter in Türkiye’s history.

She was intended to carry wounded British soldiers from the Gallipoli campaign, known in Türkiye as the Çanakkale War, where Ottoman forces fought against the Allied troops attempting to force open the Dardanelles Strait and capture Istanbul.

The operation involved diving to depths exceeding 120 meters using closed-circuit diving equipment, marking the first time objects were recovered from such a depth at the wreck.

The project was organized by British amateur historian Simon Mills, founder of the Britannic Foundation, and supervised by the Greek ministry’s underwater archaeology department.

According to the ministry, strong currents, low visibility and extreme depth made the recovery challenging, leaving some items unrecovered.

Among the objects recovered are ceramic tiles from a Turkish bath on board, a harbor signal lamp, the ship’s lookout bell, binoculars and various fittings from first- and second-class compartments.

Authorities announced that the artifacts have been transferred to conservation laboratories in Athens and will later be displayed at a permanent exhibition in a new underwater antiquities museum currently under construction in Piraeus.

The vessel was part of a trio of luxury liners built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, alongside RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic.

Unlike her ill-fated sister, which sank in the North Atlantic in 1912 after hitting an iceberg, the Britannic never served as a commercial passenger liner.

She was taken over by the British Admiralty before her maiden voyage and outfitted as a hospital ship.

The recovery of these artifacts not only sheds light on the ship itself but also provides a tangible connection to the history of World War I naval operations in the Aegean and the larger context of the Çanakkale War, a pivotal episode in the conflict that shaped the modern history of the region.