Royal and United States Mail Steamer Britannic. The Aegean Sea. They say there is a ghost that walks the coast road between the port of Korissia and the small beach at Galiaskari on the island of Kea. The ghost is a woman who carries a lantern and appears to be looking for something or someone. They say the ghost appeared not long after Tuesday, November 21, 1916. That was the day when the Britannic, larger and considered even more unsinkable than her famous sister ship the Titanic, exploded and sank just outside the harbor. To this day the Britannic is the world's biggest sunken ocean liner. At the time she was doing service as a hospital ship in the Gallipoli campaign and in fact, had never been used as an ocean-liner.
There were 30 fatalities out of a total of 1036 people and had the ship been returning with casualties rather than going to pick them up there would certainly have been many, many more. Of the survivors, many were picked up by the fishermen of Kea who were the first on the scene, and others by British ships in the area. Of the dead, most were left at sea and only five were buried including Sergeant W Sharpe whose grave is on the island. The survivors who were taken in by local people were later picked up by the rescue ships and brought to Pireaus. According to locals, the building on the beach in Korissia which is now the primary school was where they treated the injured. How the Britannic sank has been a mystery. Some believe it was torpedoed by a German sub and others that it hit a mine. The wreck was discovered by Jacques Cousteau in 1975.
