Picture
from Getty Hulton Archive |
The
Britannic was built in the Belfast shipyard of Harland &
Wolff and was due to sail to New York on her maiden voyage in
1914. However, with the outbreak of the first world war, she
was converted into a hospital ship - hence the "HMHS (His
Majesty's Hospital Ship) - and sailed to Mudros in the Aegean
in 1915. My grandfather, Charles Broughton, was then aged 37
and sailed on this voyage as a senior orderly in the RAMC. The
Britannic made six voyages between Liverpool and the Aegean
before hitting a mine in the Mediterranean in 1916 and sinking. |
