Luckiest Woman Ever!

RMS Olympic
Although Olympic's two sister ships Titanic and Britannic had tragic ends, Olympic's worst event in her 24-year career was her 1911 collision with the British warship HMS Hawke in the Solent (the strait between mainland England and the Isle of Wight) when her captain ordered a turn that caused a collision with the Hawke, much to the surprise of the Hawke's captain (who probably muttered "amateurs!"). Repairs caused a delay in the completion of the Titanic and, when the all-better-now Olympic lost a prop blade sailing from New York in February 1912, a blade from the Titanic was used to replace the one that was lost, pushing Titanic's first/final voyage to three weeks later, very probably creating her iceberg collision destiny. The captain of both the Olympic during the Hawke wreck and the Titanic was Edward Smith (who died with Titanic).

The luckiest woman? That'd be Violet Jessop, a young woman who was a stewardess on Olympic when the Hawke collision occurred, a stewardess who survived Titanic, and, while serving in World War One as a Red Cross nurse, escaped from Britannic when she sank in the Aegean Sea after hitting (it's thought) a mine.

Here's Nurse Jessop in her Britannic uniform.
(Submitted by Don Struke)

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