The Details of HMS Olympic | Detailed Analysis of a British Troopship Liner | Oceanliner Designs

ladies and gentlemen it is your friend mike brady from ocean liner designs here today to talk about a subject that's a favorite of mine it's the insane career of the olympic during the first world war i actually just got finished drawing a lot of side profiles showing her in her various paint schemes and configurations so i thought that would be a perfect time to give you a guided tour around but before we get started i just wanted to address one small elephant in the room i just want to interrupt a lot of you that are probably typing angry messages right now in the comments section you might have noticed in the video title that i've actually referred to olympic during her wartime service as the hms olympic and not hmt hmt of course being his majesty's transport hms referring to his majesty's ship the more generic wartime designation for royal navy ships there's good reason for this though even though conventionally we like to think of olympic during her career during the first world war hmt olympic i've recently been reading this hull down by sir bertram hayes who was olympics skipper during the first world war and also white star alliance commodore it's an absolutely fantastic read if you can get your hands on this this is like crucial reading for anybody interested in the olympic or the white star light or any of those chips but two times in the book he refers to olympic as hms olympic not hmt the first is a little earlier in the book when he refers to the fact that the olympic was more well known as the old reliable rather than hms olympic then after the end of the war hayes was presented with a number of gifts with inscriptions one from the halifax board of trade which referred to her as hms olympic but then a second gift from his own crew presented by the chief steward of mr stania again referring to hms olympic from the victorian department so kind of hard to argue with that especially if the skipper is calling her hms olympic right there you go with that small caveat out of the way let's have a look around olympic during her wartime career with the outbreak of war in august 1914 the world's shipping lines held their breath some pretty serious decisions would need to be made and quickly at first there was not really much call for troop ships of olympic size but this changed when the british shifted their attention to the dardanelles in a plan to invade central power held europe from the mediterranean so it was that olympics first few months of the war saw her serving as a passenger liner and it was then that she rescued the crew of hms audacious a story worthy of its own video it was only in may of 1915 that the british admiralty inquired of olympic's readiness for war and she was finally enlisted [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this was the first wartime scheme that hms olympic wore her funnels were blackened and her entire superstructure was painted a medium grey the external modifications weren't just limited to her paint scheme however she had a pair of guns installed aft one qf 4.7 inch gun perhaps a mark three or four and a smaller 12 pounder a qf3 inch forward on a pedestal mount [Music] the guns had a fairly limited arc of fire the stone gun was only able to fire as far forward as the docking bridge while the bow guns archifier was impacted by the ship's own rigging shear and anchor crane they weren't designed to deal with any large threat to olympic like a enemy cruiser or battleship her primary weapon in that regard was her speed instead they were intended for dealing with submarines early german u-boat doctrine dictated that submarines should aim to engage merchant shipping on the surface that their crews would be ordered to surrender take to the boats and then the enemy ship would be torpedoed if a u-boat tried the same with olympic they would receive a nasty surprise although small and limited in their range of fire one well-placed shot from either gun could be enough to or destroy a fragile u-boat slightly forward of the after gun you can see an ammunition ready locker and forward of this on the poop deck some stacked collapsibles likely the 30-foot mclean type boat olympics lifeboat complement was increased with the addition of a number of these collapsibles early on to the poop deck and the aft well deck at the aft world eck you can see a pair of radial davits there was one set both port and starboard and a special boat this was a steam launch with its own small engine intended for rapidly shipping mail or guests between ship or shore on the after end of the a deck promenade just above the main mast you can see stacked rafts likely the link letter typed the same as used on her sister britannic [Music] olympic's long b deck promenade had its windows blocked out perhaps painted over to avoid light from spilling and giving away the ship's position the same was true of her c-deck cabin and d-deck dining saloon and reception room portholes however because she was operating in the mediterranean when temperatures and humidity often ran high photographs often show the windows and portholes open for ventilation this often gives b deck a distinctive piano keyboard look the changes made to olympic were not just limited to our exterior d-deck's dining and reception rooms had their portholes blocked out as this was the largest space for sleeping and messing enlisted troops in fact in excess of 1800 men could be birthed here on top of this olympics luxurious public rooms were converted to bleak war usage the first class lounge for stacking rifles and the reading and writing room for helmet storage [Music] moving more forward here you can see a platform that was installed atop the bridge for the installation of an additional navigating space complete with compass binnacle the ship's morse lamps were also raised in height perhaps to aid invisibility in some way beyond this on the foxhole you can see the bow 3-inch gun on its platform atop the number one cargo hatch complete with another ready ammunition locker you can see why this gun's arc of fire would have been badly impacted by the bow anchor crane and surrounding rigging limiting it probably really to firing directly to port or starboard [Music] olympics early career as a troop ship was tied to the gallipoli campaign but this couldn't last forever casualties were so high and the campaign was so bloody that massive hospital ships were required to evacuate and treat the wounded this is why britannic went to war as a hospital ship and not a troop ship like her sister in 1916 as the gallipoli campaign winded down olympic's orders changed and she now began to shuttle canadian troops from halifax to liverpool and ultimately the blood-soaked battlefields on the western front such as the somme this was the start of a deep relationship between olympic and the city of halifax even though many of canada's sons that olympic carried away from home would never return [Music] with olympic back steaming on the atlantic measures were taken to counter the enhanced menace of german u-boats in april 1917 olympic underwent an extensive refit which saw her given the tools required to turn her into a veritable floating swiss army knife and a very effective troop carrier her aging darkened exterior was repainted a light grey overall and she would look like this for another six months until october 1917 having a look around and starting from the very stern here you can see some cylindrical drum looking objects these are called chemical smoke floats if olympic accidentally bumbled into a more powerful enemy force she could turn tail make steam and drop these floats into the water behind her the chemical reaction would create a vast smoke screen which would cover olympics retreat until she was well out of gun range on the poop deck you can also start to see that olympic's defensive armament was vastly improved the single aft gun was replaced with a pair of mean bl 6 inch mark 11 guns interestingly these guns with a near identical mount are still installed today on the preserved monitor m33 well worth a visit if you can [Music] overall six of these guns were installed on olympic three each both port and starboard meaning that she could bring a powerful weight of shot to bear regardless of whichever direction the ship was heading you can see that beneath the guns some of the portholes on sea deck have been plugged to protect the glass from shattering during the gun's percussive firing [Music] a long black tube runs up to a platform on the elevator machine housing on the aft second class entrance this is a rubber speaking tube conduit and at the other end to the gun crew was a team calling out range and direction instructions to the target the t-shaped object under a canvas cover is a rangefinder perhaps a bar and stroud model such as the ft-23 this type of rangefinder used a system of lenses to triangulate the distance to target these instructions could then be shouted vocally down the voice tube directly to the gun teams on the poop deck hopefully resulting in a well-placed shot [Music] spanning the world deck you can see that a gangway was installed this would be a permanent change to olympic and remained in place for the rest of her career perhaps it aided the gun crews in getting to their gun quicker but in any case it was found to be a convenient enough change and the structure was kept a number of signal projectors were installed on olympic you can see one here above the main mast on a platform these could be dually used to signal distant ships using morse or at night time as a spotlight [Music] well forward at the bridge here you can see the forward rangefinder under its cover and another signal projector installed on a platform atop the forward b deck bulwark there was one each for both port and starboard forward of this on the well deck and foxel can be seen the additional six inch forward guns four in total to aid in their traverse the weldek bulwark was cut away and a wire railing with stanchions installed that could be removed during firing this is true of the forward most guns too the railing was removed and replaced with a lighter portable type [Music] at the tip of the prow you might notice a pair of chains running to a triangular mount way down on the bottom of the ship this mount is called a paravein skeg and even though it sounds like i just made those words up this had a fairly important role to play mines at sea were a deadly enemy to allied merch and shipping indeed olympic sister britannic fell prey to one in 1916. as such merchant ships were given tools designed to clear mines away from busy shipping lanes and ports the primary tool for the job was the paravane the dark torpedo shaped object seen on the well deck here these are essentially water kites designed to be towed alongside the ship the heavy chains stowed at the bow would be run aft and connected to the paravein's nose then a line would be run between the installed radial davit and the triangular outrigger these would be used to maneuver the paraveins over the ship's side and down into the water both port and starboard olympic would then pick up speed and the paravein's hydrodynamic shape would force the craft deeper into the water and out away from the ship's side essentially creating a v shape with the olympic at the center at this stage the paraveins would be connected to the ship by way of the chains attached to the skeg at the bow in practice the paraveins chains would make contact with the anchor chain of a mine which would then bump along it until it made contact with a set of cutters on the nose of the paravein the mine would then bob up to the surface where olympic scanners could destroy it with a well-placed shell [Music] in october 1917 olympic received her first coat of dazzle paint camouflage this paint scheme was called type 19 design a unfortunately blueprints for this scheme still exist in the us national archives although the generic ship profile used to demonstrate the paint scheme seems to align more to a liner such as mauritania or aquitania the scheme called for a liberal usage of a light olive green colour alongside blues and greys in geometric patterns the idea was not to camouflage olympic against the ocean she stood out like a sore thumb instead this type of paint scheme made life extremely difficult for german submariners in order to put a torpedo on target submariners had to lead their shot that is fire the torpedo well ahead of the intended target where the enemy ship would presumably be heading in order to accomplish this submarines first had to ascertain the type and size of ship that they were engaging as well as its directional heading or bearing from this could be derived the ship's speed and all of this data was then used to triangulate from this could be derived the ship's speed and all of this data was used to triangulate a course for the torpedo dazzle camouflage however makes it very difficult to determine the directional heading of the enemy ship from certain angles you can hardly tell if the ship is coming or going it isn't entirely well known if dazzle camouflage was an effective countermeasure during the war but one thing is for certain it was extremely hard to upkeep and olympics hull became crusted with coal dust soot and grime and the dazzle camouflage slowly began to chip away the effort required to upkeep this type of camouflage became a serious problem for the crew and probably contributed to its abandonment during the second world war [Music] this is olympic's second dazzle camouflage and probably her most famous the type 19 design ax by 1918 the united states had entered the war and olympic was employed in shipping out the doughboys american troops she arrived in new york on christmas day 1917 the first time she had seen that city since her passenger service at the very start of the war some four years earlier the 19ax scheme made use of an elaborate series of checkerboard stripes forward and sweeping curved waves aft it was in this scheme that olympic experienced probably some of the most dramatic incidents of a wartime career in may 1918 a day out of southampton from new york olympics crew spotted the german submarine u103 as it attempted to launch its stern torpedoes at the lineup captain bertram hayes immediately took action and as his gun crews engaged the submarine he ordered the helm swung an olympic turn to ram the german boat attempted an emergency dive but it was too late the german submarine was hit and left stricken olympic did not stop for survivors but a u.s navy destroyer attended the scene and rescued the crew the german captain maintained that he had not been successfully rammed but rather that he was drawn into olympics propellers by her huge bulk this really just seems like an attempt to save face by the german captain by denying hazel's bold ramming maneuver and the embarrassment of having been rammed by an ocean liner in his book hull down bertram hayes recalls that olympics paravain chains were torn away at the bow and on dry docking the paravein skeg was found to be bent hard over the port it definitely didn't do this on its own in november 1918 what was then the most bloody conflict in modern history ended and olympic was eyed for a return to passenger service her dazzle scheme was hastily painted over in civilian colours but she would not return to passenger service for many months yet instead olympic was tasked with repatriating troops from across the atlantic in this guys and later with their guns removed olympic returned to halifax and a hero's welcome returning canada's troops olympic had earned her nickname the old reliable and the city greeted the ship's return with euphoria a local dance hall was renamed after the ship and captain hayes received gifts from the halifax board of trade amongst others the blackout on board had been lifted and externally not too much evidence of her wartime career remained except for a few minor details her peacetime paint had been so hastily applied that the dazzle camouflage beneath began to show through her funnels once again a brilliant white star buff olympic completed her final repatriation voyage in july 1919. olympic had provided safe passage to over 200 000 troops during the war and steamed almost 300 000 kilometers burning 350 000 odd tons of coal in the process she had survived not just one but at least two submarine attacks whatever ill ill-luck had befallen her sisters it certainly wasn't shared by the old reliable she would go on to become one of the most beloved liners of the 1920s but that is a story for another time so there you have it these drawings were a lot of fun to do i like i mentioned a little earlier she's one of my favorite ships of all time and her career is just fascinating it ranges from tragic to absolutely insane there's a lot of triumph and tragedy mixed in there if you've got a favorite ship or one that i've already drawn at oceanlinerdesigns.com why don't i recommend in the comments which ship you'd like me to give a tour around next i would very happily give you a guided tour of my drawings as always stay safe stay happy and i will see you again next time [Music]

Channel: Oceanliner Designs

Views: 78,294

Keywords: olympic, hmt olympic, hms olympic, olympic dazzle, olympic ww1, titanic, white star line, olympic sinking, titanic sinking, olympic transport, rms olympic

Id: QOwJnELNo64

Length: 18min 25sec (1105 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021