I had a feeling that there would be a "Titanic" connection with the newly re-opened Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia:

First launched on August 6, 1929. She was the last of the ships built for the White Star Liners (by Harland and Wolff, Belfast, N. Ireland) and the last ship to wear the White Star colours before the 1934 White Star Line amalgamation with Cunard to form the Cunard White Star Line.

http://www.pier21.ns.ca/ships/brittanic.html

CBC Newsworld will be broadcasting live on Canada Day from Pier 21.

-- Thomas M. Terashima (tom@nucleus.com), July 01, 1999

Answers

Hello Thomas:

On her first post-war voyage,
she embarked May 22, 1948
(Liverpool-New York).

That was about five months before I was born. What a beautiful ship!
Thanks!

Regards,
Peter

{added blockquotes, line breaks}

-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), July 02, 1999.

The photo they have posted with that page can't possibly be Britannic III. Just looked at the page a minute ago, and the photo shows a twin-funneled, four-masted ship. The foremast is rigged for sails (obvious even to an Okie landlubber like me). Britannic I, maybe, but not III.

Regards,

-- Kip Henry (kip-henry@ouhsc.edu), July 03, 1999.

Kip:

Hmm...you may be right.

After some searching, I was unable to find any other pages listing a "Brittanic III" for the White Star Line.

http://home.pacbell.net/steamer/wspage.htm
has a picture of a "Britannic" at the bottom of the page, with two funnels.

http://www.student.uni-augsburg.de/~pecherha/ listee.htm
has a list (although incomplete) of ships of the White Star Line, including a "Britannic" for 1930.

Something else: how does one spell the name of the ship?

More later...

-- Thomas M. Terashima (root@fullahead.to), July 03, 1999.

Hi Tom:

Three WSL ships bore the name Britannic (spelling per Lynch's 'Titanic: An Illustrated History'), all built at the Harland and Wolff yards in Belfast.

According to McCluskie, Sharpe and Marriott's 'Titanic and Her Sisters,' the first entered WSL service in 1874, and served for a number of years. The second Britannic was the ex-Gigantic, sistership of Olympic and Titanic (renamed after the disaster because of its somewhat boastful name). The second Britannic never carried a paying passenger. She was requisitioned by the British government while still in the H&W yard for World War I service as a hospital ship. In 1916, on her sixth voyage (to evacuate wounded from the ill- fated Gallipoli expedition), she struck a mine (or was torpedoed), and sank off the Greek island of Kea in the Agean Sea.

WSL's third Britannic is the one mentioned in the Pier1 webpage. The photo on the page **could** be of the first Britannic, since the early Atlantic steamers carried sails as an auxiliary means of propulsion (in case the steam engines quit), but that practice was abandoned in the 1890s, as steam engines became more powerful and reliable).

Regards,

-- Kip Henry (kip-henry@ouhsc.edu), July 04, 1999.

Britannic III, one of the last ships built for White Star Line, had an unusual (for the time) low-slung appearance. Her funnels were very short and stubby.

Her sister ship, the Georgic, was the last ship built for WS, finished in 1932. She shared her sister's low profile.

Both ship definitely had only two masts.

-- Thomas Shoebotham (tshoe@ix.netcom.com), July 08, 1999.

Just thought you would like to know as a young boy of 6 I accompanied my mother on the Brittanic 111 to Malta from Liverpool in 1946. We were going to meet up with my father who was stationed with the army in Malta. My only recollection of the trip was having to go to the sick bay to get a lump of coal out of my eye that I got while travelling up to Liverpool on the boat train. However I am told by my Mother (Still with us at 91)that I kept disappearing and could be found with the troops on the lower decks

-- Mike Horlock (mike.horlock@btinternet.com), September 12, 2004.