The Olympic does her part

From The U-Boat War 1914-1918 by Edwyn A Gray.  Page 248.  

May was a black month for the U-boat Office with sixteen submarines destroyed including Claus Rucker’s U-103 which was rammed and sunk by the luxury liner Olympic. Once again the inexperience of the crew contributed to the loss of a veteran commander. Rucker had already seen much service in the Mediterranean with U-34 and he had been switched to command the new U-103 with orders to hunt the troop-carriers bringing the American Expeditionary Force to France. He found the Olympic coming up-Channel escorted by four US destroyers and, with experienced skill, he placed his boat in the exact position necessary for a successful attack. But, at the last moment, the crew failed to bring the after-torpedo tubes ready for action and Rucker had to break off his interception and find another attack position. While passing alongside the liner with his periscope poking above the surface, further incompetence by the men controlling the diving trim caused the submarine to break surface and she was quickly spotted by the troopship’s look-outs. A shot rang out but the range was so close that the shell passed harmlessly over the top of the conning-tower. Olympic's helm went hard over and she swung towards the U-boat which was desperately attempting to turn inside the liner’s turning circle. But it was too late. The bows of the former White Star liner ripped into U-103’s hull and, as the submarine bounced and jolted down the length of the liner, the tip of Olympic’s port propeller cut her victim open. The U-boat’s bows swung up, pointed to the sky for a few seconds, and then slid back on her last dive to the bottom. Rucker and sixteen of his crew were picked up by the destroyer David, a gesture of mercy that contrasted vividly with Rucker’s own treatment of the trawler Victoria in June, 1915, when he had mercilessly shelled her crew to death.

I enjoy it when knowledge from one chapter of history spills into another.  I have read extensively about the Titanic.  She had a sister ship, the Olympic which shows up here, six years after the tragic loss of the Titanic in 1912.  The Olympic as a successfully aggressive warship, not just a luxury liner.