Naval mine ship, HMHS "Britannic", which was the sister ship of the RMS "Titanic." During World War II, the U-boat fleet, which dominated much of the battle of the Atlantic, was small at the beginning of the war and much of the early action by German forces involved mining convoy routes and ports around Britain. German submarines also operated in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Caribbean Sea, and along the U.S. coast. Initially, contact mines (requiring a ship to physically strike a mine to detonate it) were employed, usually tethered at the end of a cable just below the surface of the
Ceylan (ship) the disaster. They were brought ashore by the "Ceylan". The "Ceylan", after 27 years' service, was scrapped on March 21, 1934 in La Spezia Italy. Ceylan (ship) The Ceylan was a passenger ship of the French shipping company Compagnie des Chargeurs Réunis, which was put into service in 1907 and withdrawn in 1934. In January 1920, it took on board the 34 survivors of the passenger ship Afrique (1907), which had sunk in the Bay of Biscay in a storm. The 8223-ton Steamboat "Ceylan" was built at the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Wallsend, England for the French