Jacques Cousteau ran an expedition to locate the HMHS Britannic in 1975 from the Calypso, finally discovering it on 3rd December 1975 lying 6.75 nautical miles from her recorded position on admiralty charts, but close to where her captain reported her as sinking. Cousteau had to wait until September 1976 before he could run an expedition to dive the HMHS Britannic using commercial techniques.

During their ascent the divers entered a diving bell at about 50m in order to start their decompression in safety and comfort. The final stages were completed from within a re-compression chamber on board the Calypso.

Did the British Admiralty have something to hide when they originally charted her position? How could it have been so wrong?

There are many theories surrounding the reason why Britannic sank so quickly.

These range from coal bunker explosions, German sabotage, to a deliberate sinking by the British to gain sympathy from the Americans and entice them into the war. The real reason why she sank is still not known.

However, the most likely cause is thought to be that she hit a mine laid by U73.

Technically she should have been able to withstand this single impact due to her enhanced water tight bulkheads (additional, stronger and higher compared to the Titanic).

However, it is thought that the nurses may have opened many of the lower deck portholes to air the wards prior to picking up her next load of wounded soldiers at Mudros, and effectively negating the safety aspects of the bulkheads.

It is interesting to note that Violate Jessop a Stewardess rescued from Titanic, also served on the Britannic she survived again and later served as a nurse on the Olympic.

She was plagued with bad health throughout her life but despite all this and surviving the Three Sisters she died peacefully of congestive heart failure in May 1971.

A year before she died, Violet Jessop received a telephone call, the caller asked if this was the Violet Jessop of Titanic fame who rescued a baby, Yes was the reply, to which the woman caller laughed and announced abruptly “I was that baby” she then hung up and didn’t call back. The question is. Who was that baby?

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