RMS Olympic began life as one of the world's great passenger liners and became an important Allied troop transport during the First World War. Her wartime reliability earned her the nickname “Old Reliable,” and on 12 May 1918 she became part of one of the most unusual encounters between a liner and a German U-boat.
The Olympic Deck Relic
The relic associated with the artwork is a genuine fragment of Olympic's wooden decking. After the liner was retired and dismantled in 1935, portions of her interiors and structural materials were reused throughout Britain. Some decking eventually became flooring at the Smith & Walton paint factory in Haltwhistle.
Surviving deck material from RMS Olympic.
In 2004, Aces In Action acquired deck fragments directly from K. Jackson, a former facilities contractor at the Haltwhistle factory. The material provides a physical connection to the ship decades after its unusual path from ocean liner to troop transport and, finally, salvaged architectural material.
Olympic and U-103
On 12 May 1918, while serving as HMT Olympic, the ship encountered German submarine U-103 in the Atlantic. After the submarine was spotted, Olympic turned toward it and rammed the U-boat. U-103 sank, while most of its crew survived and were later rescued.
The encounter became one of the defining episodes in Olympic's wartime career and illustrates how dramatically the White Star liner's role had changed from carrying transatlantic passengers to transporting troops through waters threatened by submarines.
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