RMS Olympic was the longest lived of the Olympic Class liners White Star Line constructed to compete with Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania.While her sister ships Titanic and Britannic went to the bottom, Olympic prospered and even served her country in war time as a troopship, earning the nickname "Old Reliable" after proving herself unsinkable time after time.As is the case with ocean liners who manage to stay afloat, Olympic's sailing days eventually ended and she was sold off for scrap metal. Her memory lives on however in the pages of this site.RMS Olympic, in the course of her nearly 25 years at sea, earned the name "Old Reliable". Besides being cherished by her passengers and crew alike, Olympic proved herself time and time again to be a ship that could not be stopped or sunk. When World War I broke out in August 1914, Olympic remained in commercial service.
English: March 6, 1912: Titanic (right) had to be ...
English: RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic under constru...
RMS Olympic passes Nantucket Lightship 117 in earl...She once rescued the crew of a British battleship off the coast of Ireland. The warship had struck a mine and was sinking fast.
In September of 1915, the Royal Navy requisitioned her as a troop ship. She was painted in various colors and geometric shapes and refitted to carry more lifeboats and thousands of troops in a crossing. During her war service she survived four submarine attacks, turning one of them into an attack of her own as she turned on the enemy sub and rammed it. Although a glancing blow, with more than 46,000 tons of steel behind it, it was more than enough to sink the German submarine, forcing its crew to abandon ship. All told, Olympic transported more than 120,000 civilian and military personnel across the Atlantic and was, like so many liners drafted for war duty, instrumental in bringing the war to...