White Star Line naval mine, while in service as a hospital ship. "Britannic" was the largest loss for the company, and also the largest ship sunk during the conflict. 1916 also saw the loss of the liner "Cymric" which was torpedoed off the Irish coast in May, and also of the cargo ship "Georgic", which was scuttled in December with its cargo of 1,200 horses still on board, after being intercepted in the Atlantic by the German merchant raider . 1917 saw the loss of the liner "Laurentic" in January which struck a mine off the Irish coast and sank with the loss
Hospital ship By the standard of the medical provision available at the time for convalescent soldiers, hospital ships were generally superior in their standard of service and sanitation. It was during the Crimean War in the 1850s that the modern hospital ship began to emerge. The only military hospital available to the British forces fighting on the Crimean Peninsula was at Scutari near the Dardanelles. Over the course of the Siege of Sevastopol, almost 15,000 wounded troops were transported there from the port at Balaklava by a squadron of converted hospital ships. The first ships to be equipped with genuine medical facilities