THE sinking of the Titanic has become one of the most talked about disasters in history, but few people know that one woman who survived the sinking also survived disasters on the Titanic's two sister ships, Olympic and Britannic.
Violet Jessop was a stewardess on board the Olympic when it collided with a Royal Navy vessel in 1911.
She was also First Steward on the Titanic when it sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg four days into its maiden voyage to New York.
She survived after managing to get aboard one of the all-to-few lifeboats. 1,500 others lost their lives.
Later she decided to take a job as a nurse on board the Britannic - and again escaped with her life when it struck a mine and sank in the Aegean Sea.
All three ships were built for the White Star Line by Belfast shipyard Harland and Wolff - and all were supposed to be 'unsinkable'.
Now a new documentary has revealed that the sinking of the Britannic, like the Titanic, was largely attributable to human error.
The 882ft-long Britannic was due to be named the Gigantic, but after the headline-grabbing catastophe of its twin the owners thought its name would inspire terror in its passengers.
The keel of the vessel was actually laid down before that of the Titanic, but construction was halted after the Titanic sank for design changes to improve safety.
Those changes included adding a double hull, 48 lifeboats - enough for the expected 2,572 passengers and 950 crew - and extending watertight doors up to B deck.
It was calculated that the ship could remain afloat with six of its watertight compartments flooded.
In comparison the watertight doors on the Titanic only reached the much lower E deck.
A team of divers which examined the wreck of the Britannic found it almost fully intact but discovered the watertight doors and lower portholes had been left open because it was too hot below deck on the huge ship.
When the ship's bow hit a German mine the open doors allowed water to flood through the vessel and it sank in less than an hour.
In contrast the Titanic, which suffered much greater damage when an iceberg ripped a 300ft hole below its waterline, had closed, but less effective watertight doors. She stayed afloat for more than two hours.
Historian Simon Mills, who led the expedition on Britannic, said: "Had the doors been closed the Britannic would have survived. It is as simple as that."
Diver Carl Spencer who brought together the team of experts to examine the wreck of the Britannic, said: "The ship is intact apart from the tear in the bow.
"It's like a window into the past: looking at the ship is looking at a monument to a bygone age."
He even saw the captain's bath, with the plug still in the hole.
Launched in 1914, the British government requisitioned the Britannic for use as a hospital ship during the First World War.
It had made five trips to evacuate casualties when it met with disaster in the Aegean sea in November 1916.
An underwater explosion rocked the ship, and tilted it over to the starboard side.
The divers found that Britannic lies on its starboard side in only 400ft. of water, so shallow that the bow hit bottom before the vessel completely sank, bending it towards the surface.
In addition to a massive hole in its forward bow, below the shelter deck, the ship's hull is completely blown away between hold Nos. 2 and 3. Hull sections of the keel are missing for a distance of about 60 to 70 ft.
The port side hull plates are bent outward indicating a large explosion from within, most likely from ignition of coal dust in the reserve bunker.
Fearing the situation was hopeless, Captain Charles A Bartlett ordered best speed ahead in a bid to ground the 78,950 ton ship onn the island of Kea after transmitting an SOS.
Passengers were evacuated by lifeboat as the ship began to sink, but the exposed propeller on the hull of the ship began to pull the lifeboats towards their deadly blades.
Nurse Violet Jessop recorded the following in her diary: "I saw, to my horror, Britannic's huge propellers turning and mincing everything near them.
"Men, boats and everything were just one ghastly whirl."
Of the 1,035 people on board 30 people were killed by the propellers and the ship was lost to the sea.
The third of the sister ships, the Olympic, launched in 1910 also met with tragedy on one of its journeys.
It survived a collision with a navy cruiser, HMS Hawke, in September 11, 1911, but 22 years later she hit the Nantucket Lightship in dense fog killing seven of the crew.
The Olympic was also refitted for extra safety, before beinq requisitioned for troop transport duties during the First World War.
She was attacked by German submarine U-103 in 1918 but managed to turn and ram the sub, sinking it.
The vessel, nicknamed Old Reliable, was eventually sold for scrap in 1937.
In the early years of the 20th century, the high levels of migration from Europe to America inspired the White Star company to have huge, luxury cruise ships built to transport them
JK
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