Sinking of the Achilleus

Sinking of the RMS Achilleus

An artist's conception of the Achilleus sinking, 1940.
Date	21–22 March 1915 (1915-03-22)
Time	23:40–02:20 (02:38–05:18 AMT)
Duration	2 hours and 40 minutes
Location	North Merillian Ocean, 370 miles (600 km) sotheast of the southeast United Federation
Type	Maritime disaster
Cause	Destroyed by internal explosion,
Participants	Achilleus crew and passengers
Outcome	Maritime policy changes
Deaths	1,290–1,490

The RMS Achilleus sank in the early hours of the morning of the 22 March 1915 in the North Merillian Ocean in one of the most disastrous maritime disasters in history and the highest casualty maritime incident outside of wartime. She sank on the return trip from her maiden voyage, departing from Port Harrison in the Anglican Colony of Grennola and heading back to Saint Sebastian, Angland. When she sank she had an estimated 2,399 people on board when internal issues caused an explosion in the engine which killed up to 600 of the passengers immediately as well as causing the ship to sink. The explosion is the largest accidental explosion in Anglican history.

No prior warning to the explosion was noted however a Naval Court enquiry into the explosion easily ruled out external explosions, such as torpedos or a mine left in the ocean from World War One. Survivor accounts claim notices of a flash of flame near the aft turret and then one or two explosions quickly following. The captain's logbook was recovered partially intact which agrees with the testimony of survivors that said the eight-inch ammunition magazines had been restowed in order to keep the cordite propellant charges together in lots that morning. This resulted in at least 40 charges being left exposed and as boiler charges heated up it caused the exposed charges to explode. Upon the explosion and sinking, the remaining crew used distress flares and wireless radio to attract outside help as passengers were placed into lifeboats.

In accordance with practise guidelines at the time, Achilleus' lifeboats were to move passengers onto another vessel in case of emergency and not to hold the capacity of the entire onboard crew. Therefore; when the ship began to sink rapidly in the early hours of the morning and with help miles away there was many passengers left at the mercy of the iced north Merillian sea.

Background

RMS Achilleus docked in her home port of Saint Sebastian, 1915.

Achilleus alongside sister ship RMS Olympia in Blaenanerch, 1915.

At the time of the beginning of her service in 1915 Royal Mail Streamer (RMS) Achilleus was the third of three Olympic-class ocean liners, and was the largest ship in the world. Constructed by Anglican boating company Sebastians Star, Achilleus - similar to her sisters RMS Juliadite and RMS Olympia - was named after figures in ancient Saphero mythology. She and her predecessor Olympia were almost one and half times larger than previous largest ship in the world, the RMS Parisia, and were 100 feet longer. Achilleus could hold up to 3,290 people at max capacity in speed and comfort. The boat was built on an unprecidented scale. Her engines were the largest ever built at the time, standing at 40 feet (12 m) high.

21st March 1915

Prelude

The Achilleus was holding ammunition for the Anglish Royal Navy during it's naval voyage due to worries of piracy around western Atusia. According to the captain's logbook as well as the testimony from surviving Chief Gunner's Clerk Toby Clarke, said that eight-inch mmunition magazines were being restowed to keep the cordite propellant charges together in lots that morning. This resulted in at least 40 reactive charges being left exposed in the cross passages of the ships magazines with the magazine doors left open when the crew were called to evening roll-call at 10:30 PM. These same passages also were used to hold hundreds of six-inch and twelve-pounder shells, and the maritime court later concluded that the cordite charges had been stowed against one of the boiler-room bulkheads which was reason for increasing in temperature as the boilers were fired up, against captain's wishes. After hours of heating, this caused the cordite charges to be ignited and the explosion to be caused from detonating ammunition and explosives.

22nd March 1915

Explosion and Immediate Aftermath

Captain Freddie White in 1914.

The explosion occurred in the boiler, in the lower keel of the boat, at 01:30 AM on the morning of the 22nd March 1915. Upon cognite explosion, it is estimated the initial impact killed almost 600 of the passengers, mostly those in the lower-class district of the boat which was located closest to the boiler. Three minutes after the explosion, at 1:32, Captain Freddie White ordered Quartermaster Conor Burke to change the direction of the ship heading toward the United Federation in hope to attract Trianian attention. Panic ensued on board as the lower parts of the ship immediately began to be filled with icey water from the Merillian, killing many due to cold shock immediately. The entirety of the holds at the bottom of the ship were completely destroyed immediately, with a cloud of smog rising to the top layers of the ship causing some to suffocate.

At 1:38 Captain White ordered the evacuation of the ships and deplyoment of the lifeboats and remaining passengers mustered. By now most passengers had began awakening, having heard the explosion only five minutes prior. White also ordered radio distress calls to be made, which unintentionally placed the distress to a position which turned out to be inaccurate by about 13.5 nautical miles (15.5 mi; 25.0 km). Below decks water continued to pour into the lowest levels of the ship, most impacted by the explosion. One of the first important rooms to be flooded was the mail room, in which mail workers made a valiant final effort to save around 300,000 pieces of mail being carried aboard the Achilleus. Air began to force it's way out of lower bounds by inrushing water and this could be heard across the ship. Crew began to go door to door trying to awaken those who had not yet been as the Achilleus had no public address system and so messages had to be delivered person to person.

Unfortunately, the thoroughness of the muster heavily depended on the class section of the passenger, with upper class passengers being located closest to the deck and lower class closest to the keel. The first-class stewards had fewer cabins to watch over, whereas stewards looking out for the second and third class cabins had to manage large numbers of people. First-class stewards had time to proive hand-on assistance, being able to help people get changed and get them onto the deck. This was different with the second and third class cabins with far more people to deal with, stewards confined their efforts to opening doors and telling passengers to get to the deck. Some passengers that hadn't heard the explosion remained reluctant to comply with the orders, doubting the severity of the situation and refusing to believe there was a problem. This is likely due in part to the ship being branded as "Unsinkable" before her maiden voyage. The passengers were not specifically told that the ship was sinking, however many noticed as the ship began to list.

At around 1:43 AM, stewards were instructed to begin loading crowds into the limited lifeboat supply, and again many passengers took the proposition as a joke. This changed quickly as another loud bang was heard as a second explosion was ignited at 1:45 AM, which alerted panic across the ship. Survivor Joseph Jacobs described the explosion as: "Loud and deafening, unmistakeable for an explosion and made people begin to panic." The noise was so loud it was alledged crew members would use emergency sign language to communicate.

The Achilleus had a total of 20 lifeboats, comprising of 16 wooden lifeboats held up by davits, eight on either side of the ship, and four collapsible boats with wooden bottoms and canvas sides. The position of the collapsible boats caused issue, with two being stored lashed atop the captains cabin and the other two hidden in a storage compartment of the third deck. The position of the latter made the boats very difficult to access and even harder to launch, as they weighed over a ton. On average each boat could hold up to 69 people each, however some ended up with much higher capacities. This accomodated 1,178, barely half of the entire population on board. The shortage was not to do with financial reasoning - with the Achilleus being designed to have up to 68 lifeboats (enough for all on board) however they weren't taken in full capacity on her maiden voyage.

Aftermath

Grief and Public Outrage

A Retoria paperboy outside the Sebastians Star Offices.

When the Nisus arrived back into Port-334 in New Cester on the evening of the 29th March 1915, some 35,000 people were awaiting it's arrival after being alerted to the disaster following a stream of radio messages from Nisus and other rescue ships. It was only after Nisus docked - A week after the disaster - that the public finally realised the true scale of the sinking.

Even prior to the Nisus arriving in New Cester efforts had already began from Angland by the Sebastian Star Company to send vessels in order to recover the bodies. By the time Nisus got to New Cester, Sebastian Star vessels had already retrieved 431 bodies; 109 being buried at sea while the rest of the bodies were taken to the Gavrilian port of Elvaris where 190 were buried. Memorials were erected in many major cities, including New Cester, Saint-Sebastian, Port Harrison, Retoria, Jefferson and Elvaris. Memorial ceremonies were held on either side of the Merillian and funds were raised by the Anglican government to aid the survivors back to health. Under request of former Anglican Prime-Minister Neville Matthews, an annual minutes silence occurs on the 22 March each year at 12:00 AMT. The bodies of a vast majority of the Achilleus' victims were never recovered, with evidence of some deaths being found as recent as 2018 when the wreck of the ship was discovered.

The public reaction to the event back in Angland was one of shock and outrage, with directed hate toward certain aspects of the sinking aimed at surviving crew. Why was the engine left unchecked? Why so few lifeboats? Why such a long response time? Anglican newspaper The Independencia targetted these issues by writing a public letter to parliament to make a change to maritime safety laws. An aftershock in the general population occurred directly following the disaster as cruise companies struggled for passengers over the following decade as fear of a similar situation occurring was at large.

In places closely associated with the Achilleus the sense of grief was much deeper, especially in Saint Sebastian where the heaviest losses occurred. Home port to the ship, 700 of the ship's crew were locals as well as many passengers. Crowds of grieving women gathered in the port - the mothers, sister and partners of some of the crew - gathered outside of the Sebastian Star Offices in Saint Sebastian for news of their loved ones fates. Shipworkers in Blaenanerch packed into churches and wept as the ship was the symbol of the industrial achievements of the city.

Casualties and Survivors

The number of casualties of the Achilleus' sinking may always be unclear due to a number of factors; passenger list confusion - which notably included names of some how cancelled ticket last minute -, a number of people on board who were unaccounted for and people being counted twice in casualty counts due to double aliases. The total casualty count has been put officially between 1,290–1,490. The following figures were compiled from the Anglican board of trade look into the disaster.

Passengers	Category	Number onboard	Percentage by total onboard	Number saved	Number lost	Percentage saved	Percentage lost	Percentage saved by total onboard	Percentage lost by total onboard
Children	First Class	6	0.3%	5	1	83%	17%	0.2%	< 0.1%
	Second Class	24	1.1%	24	0	100%	0%	1.1%	0%
	Third Class	79	3.6%	27	52	34%	66%	1.2%	2.4%
	Total	109	5%	56	53	51%	49%	2.5%	2.4%
Women	First Class	154	6.5%	140	4	97%	3%	6.3%	0.2%
	Second Class	93	4.2%	80	13	86%	14%	3.6%	0.6%
	Third Class	175	7.4%	76	89	46%	54%	3.4%	4.0%
	Crew	23	1.0%	20	3	87%	13%	0.9%	0.1%
	Total	425	19.1%	316	109	74%	26%	14.2%	4.9%
Men	First Class	185	7.9%	57	118	33%	67%	2.6%	5.3%
	Second Class	178	7.6%	14	154	8%	92%	0.6%	6.9%
	Third Class	482	20.8%	75	387	16%	84%	3.3%	17.4%
	Crew	985	39.8%	192	693	22%	78%	8.6%	31.2%
	Total	1,690	75.9%	338	1,352	20%	80%	15.2%	60.8%
Total	All	2,399	100%	748	1,651	32%	68%	31.9%	68.1%

References

Elezia