Worldwide Olympic Committee
On 24 September 1915 the newly designated HMT 2810, now under the command of Bertram Fox Hayes, left Liverpool carrying 6,000 troopers to Mudros, Greece for the Gallipoli Campaign. On 1 October lifeboats from the French ship Provincia which had been sunk by a U-boat that morning off Cape Matapan have been sighted and 34 survivors rescued by Olympic. Hayes was criticised for this motion by the British Admiralty, who accused him of placing the ship at risk by stopping her in waters the place enemy U-boats had been lively. The ship’s pace was thought of to be her finest defence in opposition to U-boat attack, and such a big ship stopped would have made an unmissable target. However, the French Vice-Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet took a different view, and awarded Hayes with the Gold Medal of Honour. Olympic made several more trooping journeys to the Mediterranean till early …
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