When Lightoller returned to White Star Line in 1919, he was given the position as Celtic's Chief Officer. He almost became commander of 'Olympic', but he was passed over.

The reason why the company for whom he had served twenty years had forgotten him was rather simple - the White Star Line was superstitious about having any Titanic officer become a captain of any ship of theirs; disgusted, Lightholler quit.

The White Star Line Rebuilds

Soon after the end of the war, the Liverpool-New York service was resumed by the ‘Big Four’ and the Southampton-New York service resumed in September, 1919.

As the White Star Line rebuilt its scheduled services, ships of other IMM companies were again used to back up the line’s ships but it was two former German passenger ships which became the backbone of the line’s trans-Atlantic service from Southampton.

On December 17th, 1913, the Danzing shipbuilders, F.Schichau launched the Columbus for the German company Norddeutscher Lloyd.

In 1920, as part of the war reparation, the ship was handed over to Britain and was then bought by the White Star Line who renamed her the Homeric.

A 30,000grt ship had been laid down at Belfast shortly before the war with the intention of naming Germanic, but with the start of the war, the intended name was changed to Homeric. The ship’s keel was broken up on the slipway as the shipbuilding industry concentrated on Naval and merchant ships.

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