RMS Oceanic was a transatlantic ocean liner built for the White Star Line. She sailed on her maiden voyage on 6 September 1899 and was the largest ship in the world until 1901. At the outbreak of World War I she was converted into an armed merchant cruiser. On 8 August 1914 she was commissioned into Royal Navy service.

On 25 August 1914, the newly designated HMS Oceanic departed Southampton to patrol the waters from the North Scottish mainland to Faroe. On 8 September she ran aground and was wrecked off the island of Foula, in the Shetland Islands.

Background

In the late 1890s the White Star Line's existing flagship ocean liners and both launched in 1889, had become outmoded due to rapid advances in marine technology: Their competitors, the Cunard Line, had introduced the and in 1893, and from 1897 the German Norddeutscher Lloyd began introducing four new s beginning with . In order to compete with these ships the White Star Line needed to produce a new flagship which could rival them.

Design and construction

The RMS Oceanic was built at Harland and Wolff’s Queen's Island yard in Belfast, as was the tradition with White Star Line ships, and her keel was laid down in 1897.

She used the luxury over speed strategy, which first began with the Cymric in 1897. She was named after their first successful liner of 1870, and was to be the first ship to exceed Brunel's in length, although not in tonnage. At 17,272 gross register tons, the future "Queen of the Ocean" cost one million pounds sterling and required 1,500 shipwrights to complete. However, Oceanic was not designed to be the fastest ship afloat or compete for the Blue Riband, as it was the White Star Line's policy to focus on size and comfort rather than speed. Oceanic was designed for a service speed of . She was powered by two four-cylinder triple expansion engines, which were when constructed the largest of their type in the world, and could produce . The architect Richard Norman Shaw was employed as the consultant for the design of much of the interiors of the ship, which were lavishly decorated in the first-class sections. Charles Lightoller gives an account of what it was like to be an officer on this vessel.

Her passenger accommodations were laid out in a manner similar to that of Teutonic and Majestic, with First Class amidships, Second Class situated at the aft end of the superstructure and Third Class divided at the forward and aft ends of the vessel on four decks; Promenade, Upper, Saloon and Main. First Class occupied spaces on all four decks, most of which was dedicated to an array of spacious and comfortable single, two-berth and three-berth cabins. There was a library on the Promenade Deck and a smoke room at the aft end of the Upper Deck, with the most impressive feature being the elegant dome which capped the First Class dining room on the Saloon Deck. The First Class Dining Room boasted both a piano and an organ. There were berths for valets and ladies' maids in close proximity to the first class accommodation.

Similar to what was seen aboard Teutonic and Majestic, Second Class accommodations aboard were of more modest elegance, but spacious and comfortable. A separate deckhouse at the aft end of the superstructure provided both open and closed promenade decks and housed a library and smoke room which were scaled-down versions of their First Class counterparts. The same scaling-down was seen with the Second Class dining room, which could seat 148, and the array of comfortable two-berth and four-berth cabins.

Third Class, as was customary on all White Star Line vessels on the North Atlantic, was strictly segregated at opposite ends of the vessel on the Upper, Saloon and Main decks. On the Upper Deck, entrances were located adjacent to the forward and aft well decks, where most of the lavatories were located. At the very aft end of the deck were the Third Class Smoke Room and General Room, as well as the galley. Single men were berthed in five compartments at the forward end of the vessel (two on the Saloon deck, three on the Main deck), each of which were laid out in a rather novel design of open berths. Because the berthing of Third Class was distributed at either end of the vessel, the forward compartments each had berths for roughly 100 men, whereas conventional open berth dormitories often berthed up to 300 passengers on other ships. This allowed for a more open layout which was far less crowded, complete with long tables and wooden benches where male passengers were served their meals.

In the aft quarters of the ship for Third Class were accommodations for single women, married couples and families located in five compartments (parallel to the forward layout, with two on the Saloon deck and three on the Main deck). As was seen aboard Teutonic and Majestic, as well as the newly completed Cymric, there were a limited number of two-berth and four-berth cabins, these were strictly reserved for married couples and families with children. The smaller of the two Saloon deck compartments was designated for married couples. On the main deck, a section of another compartment was designated for families with children. Each of the two compartments also had small dining rooms fashioned with fitted tables and swivel chairs similar to that in Second Class. In the remaining three compartments, single women were berthed in 20-berth dormitory-style cabins situated on the outer sides of each compartment. At the centre of each compartment, a widened corridor was fashioned as a dining room with long fitted tables and swivel chairs running lengthwise through each compartment.

Proposed sister ship Olympic

As White Star typically ordered ships in pairs, a sister ship for Oceanic to be named Olympic was proposed. However, due to the uncertainties following the IMM acquisition of the White Star Line in 1902, the order was never placed. For the time, the company decided instead to deploy the resources to a fourth "Big Four" class ship, the Adriatic which was ordered in August the same year

. The name Olympic was later bestowed upon the of 1910.

World War I

Oceanic had been built under a deal with the Admiralty, which made an annual grant toward the maintenance of any ship on the condition that it could be called upon for naval work, during times of war. Such ships were built to particular naval specifications, in the case of Oceanic so that the guns she was to be given could be quickly mounted. "The greatest liner of her day" was commissioned into Royal Navy service on 8 August 1914 as an armed merchant cruiser.

Rescue

The Aberdeen trawler Glenogil was the first vessel on the scene, and although she attempted to pull off the massive ship, it proved an impossible task, and with the hull already ruptured, Oceanic would not have stayed afloat long in open waters. Other ships in the area were called in to assist in the rescue operation that was to follow. All of the ship's crew transferred to the trawler via the ship's lifeboats and were then ferried to the waiting armed merchant cruiser HMS Alsatian, and . Charles Lightoller, the ship's First Officer (and also the most senior officer to survive the sinking of the Titanic), was the last man off, taking the navigation room's clock as a souvenir.

The 573-ton Admiralty salvage vessel Lyons was dispatched to the scene hurriedly, and in the words of the Laird of Foula, Professor Ian Holbourn, writing about the disaster in his book The Isle of Foula:

<blockquote>The launch of the Lyons, a salvage boat which hurried to the scene, was capable of a speed of ten knots, yet was unable to make any headway against the tide although she tried for fifteen minutes. Even then it was not the top of the tide, and the officer in charge reckoned the full tide would be 12&nbsp;knots, he confessed he would not have believed it had he been told.</blockquote>

Commander Smith is said to have come ashore at the remote island's tiny pier, and on looking back out to sea toward his stranded ship two miles away, commented that the ship would stay on the reef as a monument and nothing would move it. One of the Foula men, wise to the full power and fury of a Shetland storm, is said to have muttered with a cynicism not unknown in those parts "I‘ll give her two weeks". Over the next six years, Simon Martin and Alec Crawford, with wet-suits and Scuba gear, and initially working from an inflatable dinghy, recovered more than 200 tonnes of non-ferrous metal. Martin told the story in his best-selling book, The Other Titanic.

Lifeboat

In 2016, Oceanics Lifeboat 6 was rediscovered and subsequently restored. It is in the collection of the Shetland Museum in Lerwick. The lifeboat is one of the last two White Star Line lifeboats still intact in the world, the other being Lifeboat 2 from .

Notes

References

Bibliography

  • The Other Titanic, Simon Martin (Salvage report, 1980).
  • Oceanic on thegreatoceanliners.com
  • Oceanic - at the White Star Line History Website
  • White Star Line Brochure 1907 contains photographs and accommodation descriptions for Oceanic and other White Star ships.
  • YouTube video dedicated to the RMS Oceanic
  • Scottish Shipwrecks, RMS Oceanic
  • MR. ISMAY'S PRIDE & JOY: Detailed history with images of Oceanic