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
German hospital ship Ophelia up any survivors. However, the English captured her and made her prize, charging us with having sent her for scouting purposes, although she was obviously fitted up as a hospital ship and bore all the requisite markings...We also considered ourselves released from our obligations and with far more justification took action against hospital ships which, under cover of the Red Cross flag, were patently used for the transport of troops. — German Admiral Scheer The British renamed the ship SS "Huntley" and used her for transporting fuel from Portishead to Boulogne. On 21 December 1915 she was torpedoed and sunk