"B-29 Frozen in Time/
Titanic's Lost Sister

PBS Airdate: July 29, 1997

ANNOUNCER: Tonight on NOVA, a two-hour adventure to recover the relics of wars long past. First, in Greenland, a deserted but intact B-29 bomber has been waiting for rescue for more than fifty years. Can this team fly the Kee Bird home?

VERNON RICH: Just like new again.

ANNOUNCER: A daunting challenge becomes a life and death struggle. Then, World War I. Britannic, twin sister of the ill-fated Titanic, is made safer and commissioned as a hospital ship. Today, she lies somewhere in the Mediterranean. Can a modern-day team determine what made this unsinkable ship sink? It's a two-hour NOVA special: "B-29 Frozen in Time" followed by "Titanic's Lost Sister."

NOVA is funded by Merck. Merck. Pharmaceutical research. Dedicated to preventing disease and improving health. Merck. Committed to bringing out the best in medicine. And by Prudential.

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The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and viewers like you.

RICHARD CRENNA: A C-141 lifts off from Thule Air Force Base. Once a vital staging post for the nuclear bomber fleet, Thule is now a relic of the Cold War. While its radar domes still probe the horizon, it is eerily quiet and almost deserted. One of the most remote and isolated outposts of the United States Air Force, it lies on the inhospitable barren shore of northwest Greenland, deep inside the Arctic Circle. The climate is harsh and unforgiving. Even in summer, when the sun never sets, it remains so cold that the sea is littered with icebergs. Inland, a vast unbroken icecap stretches for eight hundred miles. The weather changes hourly, from bright sun to dark, menacing storm clouds with gale-force winds. Two hundred and fifty miles north of Thule lies another relic of the Cold War, an almost-intact B-29 bomber. This plane, nicknamed the Kee Bird, became lost and crash-landed while on a secret mission. The crew was rescued, but the Kee Bird would lie here abandoned for almost fifty years. When the B-29 first flew in 1942, it could go higher and farther than any other bomber. In the war against Japan, it traversed the Pacific and crested the Himalayas. The culmination of the B-29's military service was when the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, ending the war. Nearly four thousand of these planes were built, but now less than a handful remain. If the Kee Bird could be recovered from this Arctic wilderness, it would be a unique treasure of aviation history, probably worth a great deal of money. Darryl Greenamyer, a former test pilot, has been working on a bold plan to rescue the B-29 and fly it back home. Darryl has flown higher and faster than most other living pilots. He had once been a test pilot on the U-2 spy plane and its replacement, the SR-71 Blackbird. In the seventies, he built his own Starfighter jet from spare parts to gain a low-altitude speed record, which he still holds. An accomplished pilot and engineer used to taking risks, if anyone could pull this off, it was Darryl.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: It really is a unique opportunity. It may be the only airplane in the world that I can think of that's been sitting somewhere for fifty years that you could actually get in and potentially fly. It's just, you know, a far-away place. That's the reason it's available.

RICHARD CRENNA: But getting the Kee Bird into the air requires more than skill and boldness. The bulk of the heavy supplies and machinery that Darryl would need has to be carried to Thule on the annual supply ship. A five-ton bulldozer will be needed to build a runway for the B-29. Bulky new tires and propellers are also required, along with four massive, reconditioned radial engines. All of this equipment has to be carried north over the two hundred and fifty miles of desolate Arctic landscape that separates Thule from the bomber. Darryl's solution is a 1962 Caribou, another of his salvaged wonders.

RICK KRIEGE: It's basically a short-field—You know, a short landing and take-off—airplane, and it's made for unimproved fields. They used it in Vietnam a lot, and it's a pretty rugged airplane. It's ideal for this sort of thing, flying these engines in, and it'll carry a pretty good load.

RICHARD CRENNA: Rick Kriege, who had been Darryl's chief engineer for over seven years, is responsible for making his plans work. With the Caribou's arrival in mid-July, Darryl's team is complete. Cecilio Grande has been Rick's assistant for three years, learning on the job. Vernon Rich is a toolmaker and machinist, and Bob Vanderveen, as well as being another pair of hands, is going to do the cooking. Roger von Grote, a retired airline pilot and a distant relative of Baron von Richtofen, will fly the Caribou. Darryl and the others take off from Thule. Their flight takes them over uncharted mountains and glaciers, two hundred and fifty miles north. It is a risky journey into the unknown, where the chances of rescue are slim. Finally, they come to the valley where the B-29 came to rest. They fly low over the valley floor. Roger lowers the wheels and makes a brief touchdown to test how firm the surface is. It seems fine, so they go around and come in to make a landing. If anything goes wrong now, the consequences could be fatal. But they make it.

TEAM MEMBER: Fantastico! Fantastico!

RICHARD CRENNA: The relieve and euphoria spills out as they examine their landing strip.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Fantastic, huh?

ROGER VON GROTE: If we can get the thing turned around in this soft dirt, you know. . .

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Oh, yeah, we can. And, in fact, I felt this is the first really soft stuff we hit. Look back here.

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah. Do you like our veer-off approach?

RICHARD CRENNA: The team begins to set up camp, as behind them, the B-29 gleams like new in the chill Arctic sunshine, a time capsule preserved in this remote valley. All around is evidence of the remarkable story of the Kee Bird's last crew. For them, landing here had been nothing to celebrate. It had been the start of a frightening three days.

RUSSELL S. JORDAN: I honestly didn't think we was going to get out. I had made up my mind on the way down that, you know, this is no dream. This is reality. Face it and accept it.

JOHN G. LESMAN: And then we realized once we were out, the plane was not on fire. That was the main concern. Arnett made a hell of a good landing, and the airplane was intact.

RICHARD CRENNA: Nobody was hurt in the crash landing, but they were stranded in a deadly climate miles from anywhere, not knowing if they would be rescued.

JOHN G. LESMAN: My biggest concern, I was too busy, frankly, wanting to get a position in to the search airplanes, so somebody would know where we were. That was the big thing, establishing our position and finding out where in the hell we are so we could be rescued.

RUSSELL S. JORDAN: Our spirits were high. We knew we were going to get out. We just—There wasn't one guy didn't feel like we weren't going to make it. But, I remember the cold and no place to go to get warm. That's the thing that I remember mostly about it.

RICHARD CRENNA: On the second day, an Air Force plane found the Kee Bird.

JOHN G. LESMAN: The greatest we felt when that plane flew overheard with the supplies and they knew where we—They actually physically spotted us. That was the greatest feeling.

RICHARD CRENNA: A day later, a plane landed beside them and flew them out to safety. Now, at last, the Kee Bird was going to be rescued as well.

JOHN G. LESMAN: I've got torn feelings. Everybody's excited about getting it out and they're going to make a lot of money out of it, apparently, and everybody's going to look at this airplane. It's great and all that. But, somehow, it's something like going into an Indian grave, as far as I'm concerned. I kind of feel like it belongs up there.

RICHARD CRENNA: No longer claimed by the Air Force, the Kee Bird was now available to anyone who could fly her out. Darryl and his team go to work.

RICK KRIEGE: Kee Bird, Kee Bird. Over.

RICHARD CRENNA: The radio link to Thule is established, the tents set up, and Bob starts work on recovering the damaged rudder, which, despite the aluminum construction of the B-29, had been covered in fabric. Then, as the Caribou taxies to return to Thule, their precarious situation is brought home to them.

RICK KRIEGE: Darryl was trying to taxi around and I was out watching it, and he got going a little bit, and then, the nose wheel just went all the way, ninety. Both tires rolled off the rim and lost all their air. I thought we were stuck here.

RICHARD CRENNA: It takes hours to dig the wheels out of the sticky mud. Rick's idea to use propane gas from the camp stove allows the Caribou to return to Thule, even though the wheels could explode if they get too hot. The plane takes off, leaving Rick, Bob, and Cecilio behind. Once at Thule, they refill the tires.

VERNON RICH: Don't make any sparks. Just don't make any sparks.

RICHARD CRENNA: It is vital to get the bulldozer up to the B-29 and improvise a runway, but the Caribou will be seriously overloaded, and as Darryl inches the bulldozer onto the plane, Roger is concerned.

ROGER VON GROTE: It's a little bit higher risk than I really thought it would be, because Darryl maxes everything to the limit. If both engines run, it'll get off the ground. But if one engine quits, we're just going to have to crash straight ahead, because one engine's not going to carry the load.

RICHARD CRENNA: The Caribou, slow and cumbersome, returns to the B-29. Rick lights a bonfire so that Roger knows the wind direction for his landing. As the dangerously overloaded Caribou comes in to land, people on the ground do not realize that something has gone seriously wrong. The flaps had failed, and Roger had nearly lost control.

ROGER VON GROTE: We came in a no-flapper. I came—I came —

RICK KRIEGE: I knew you were coming.

ROGER VON GROTE: Well, at ninety knots, I stalled, and I was in this shaker at ninety, and Darryl said we can't do it without any flaps. I thought, oh, shit. I don't want to go all the way back. We're getting low on fuel.

RICHARD CRENNA: The Caribou has plowed into the soft earth. Another inch, and the propellers would have smashed into the ground. Disaster had been narrowly averted. Darryl puts the bulldozer to work on the B-29, immediately proving its worth. The Kee Bird is back on dry land for the first time in half a century. When the giant B-29 crashed in 1947, the bomb bay doors suffered the most obvious damage. They will be taken off to be replaced later.

RICK KRIEGE: Well, the snow really cushioned it real well. It built up under the bomb bays, and the bomb bay doors took all the load and about ninety percent of the damage. There's a little bit of damage on the fuselage and on the flaps, but that's it.

RICHARD CRENNA: The propellers were badly buckled by the crash, and the main engine bearings were twisted. New ones will be put in their place.

CECILIO GRANDE: The key elements were the engines, but we've got four new engines. We ran two of them on the test stand. They all ran. They ran great. We need to get these engines on and tidied up and ready to run and then hang propellers.

RICHARD CRENNA: They take an inventory of the work necessary to get the plane air worthy.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: The tires, they look good, but they're rayon, and rayon doesn't age well, so we brought up some nylon tires to change them out. The rudder and the elevators are going to be changed out. Coming on over here to the ailerons, the control surfaces were fabric, and they have to be changed. They were paper-thin; you could put your finger right through them.

RICHARD CRENNA: The summer here is very short, so time is of the essence, and Darryl has a limited budget. He planned to make a round trip in the Caribou every two days to fly in the engines and parts from Thule. The weather so far has prevented this. Darryl hoped the whole project could be finished in a month, but two weeks have passed and he has yet to fly a single new engine out of Thule. Captain Dougan, the base manager, asks him about the schedule.

CAPT. DOUGAN: . . .when you got here, that, you know, were trying to plan to have people in here.

ROGER VON GROTE: That's assuming we could fly straight through, and we haven't been able to.

CAPT. DOUGAN: And I told him, I said, "The weather up here is not like—It may be summer, but it's not summer like you think of it in the United States."

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Yeah, that's right. Talk to the man upstairs and do something with this weather, will you?

CAPT. DOUGAN: Well, to get it the same at both sites would be unique, also.

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah.

CAPT. DOUGAN: Yeah.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Actually, the weather up there the last few days has been nice.

CAPT. DOUGAN: Well, that's what I heard. I was going to say, it's good up there, and it has been good here. I mean —

DARRYL GREENAMYER: In fact, it's hot.

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah, it gets actually hot sometimes, like fifty degrees.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: And no wind.

RICHARD CRENNA: Back at the B-29, Rick, Cecilio, and Bob continue working, stripping off the old twisted propellers. Rick designed the hoist from old photos of B-29s being field-maintained during the Second World War. Darryl and Roger return with a new engine, and the old ones are slowly eased off.

RICK KRIEGE: Idle it down, just real easy. Go forward.

RICHARD CRENNA: Before the new engines can be installed, a lot of components need to be stripped from the old ones.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Well, how do you want to dismantle this thing?

RICK KRIEGE: Well, first you've got to take the carburetors, take all this stuff off. Then we've got to take the injection pumps off, then we've got to take the carburetor off.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: OK.

RICK KRIEGE: Then we take the motor mount off.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: All right.

RICHARD CRENNA: Eventually, a small production line is set up, as old engines are dismantled to be taken back to Thule and the new ones are made ready to be hoisted back into place on the old engine mountings. The engines themselves are massive eighteen-cylinder radials, the most powerful ever built. Changing these huge engines in a warm hangar is difficult enough. Doing it in the middle of the Arctic will be a back-breaking task. Rick is tireless, and his workload isn't only confined to the B-29. The Caribou also presents problems. The Caribou takes off on its third trip to Thule. It circles and returns to land. Roger thinks there may be an engine fire.

ROGER VON GROTE: As soon as I went to cruise power, the light came on and it was flashing. And I went back and looked at the engine. I didn't see any smoke or anything, but I was reading in a book where they said you can get some fires internally with no smoke evidence, so—Well, we thought it was prudent to come back where the maintenance is.

RICHARD CRENNA: Rick discovers that the fire indicator on the engine is faulty. The aborted flight has cost Darryl more time.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: It's really disappointing. What can I say? I mean, here we've got two beautiful days of weather coming up, and we've got plenty of work to do, but it's just going to—If we can't take off on Monday, then we are behind. We're going to have people sitting on their hands doing nothing.

RICHARD CRENNA: Then the weather causes more delay. A month has passed, and it is now the second week of August. Snow is beginning to settle ominously on the surrounding hills. Rick and Cecilio keep working even in the rain, hammering on the exhaust cowlings.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Well, that was easy.

RICK KRIEGE: Whose side are you on?

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Have you heard a report from the CASA on the tops of the clouds? And also, is it scattered or broken back at Thule?

THULE RADIO: It's broken back here. It's scattered 1.7.

RICHARD CRENNA: Darryl is desperate to keep the shuttle flights going and feels that he has to risk flying in bad weather.

THULE RADIO: So don't bother going that direction.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: OK. I guess we'll give it a shot. We'll come around and then we'll try and come in under it.

RICK KRIEGE: OK. Come down with it. Let's go ahead and back up with it again. Can you keep turning it on and off? Turn it on again.

RICHARD CRENNA: The work is physically demanding. Removing the old tires takes hours, even using the bulldozer to separate them from the rim. Rick is beginning to show the strain of this hard work and looks exhausted. Mealtimes bring some respite and are an opportunity to tell stories of old exploits, like the time Darryl tried to take off in Panama without using the runway.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: They wanted me to take off on the ramp so they didn't have to open up the fence to get on Panama property to use the runway. So, I said, "Well, no problem." But then, they wanted me to take off a little bit downwind because if I went the other way, I'd be flying over the general's house. And so, I said, "Well, OK. I think so." It was a downhill run and then a slight turn about sixty knots, and then down the ramp.

ROGER VON GROTE: How much runway do you have, all told?

DARRYL GREENAMYER: I don't remember. But, what happened was, I went down the little hill and made the right turn, and then it started bouncing, and all of a sudden, the nose wheel steering kicked out, and I tried to hold it, and the—I was too close to the fence, and so it kind of lifted off and then squatted right down on the fence. But I didn't give up just then. I kept going.

BOB VANDERVEEN: Working on the wing in that snowstorm, it was too hot, and it was coming loose because of that.

ROGER VON GROTE: Oh, really?

RICHARD CRENNA: Bob has finished recovering the rudder with fabric, and he and Roger are now putting the finishing touches to it. Vernon has had to make many of the small components for the rudder cables and control surfaces from scratch. Without blueprints, it is not easy.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: And then put the other one with the flange in its place and then drill this one out and stick it in the other end, so we'll have the same configuration you're getting.

VERNON RICH: Just like we made the other two.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Well, you do—Yeah, except that—No, no. We'll go to this size bolt.

VERNON RICH: Right. Right.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Yeah.

VERNON RICH: So, we're going up.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Right.

BOB VANDERVEEN: Just like new again.

ROGER VON GROTE: Yup. It'll fly.

BOB VANDERVEEN: This is the real recovery work here.

ROGER VON GROTE: It'll fly.

BOB VANDERVEEN: You bet it'll fly.

RICHARD CRENNA: By the time the rudder is ready to be hoisted back into place, the project has taken five weeks, far longer than Darryl's original forecast. But the sun is now back, and people's spirits have lifted again.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Stick a bolt in there and I'll wiggle it around. Can you tap it in?

ROGER VON GROTE: That's what I'm going to try to do now.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Now, you see the flange in front? It's got to be straight with this.

ROGER VON GROTE: I see the flange in front very well.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: I mean, in back. In back. In the back of the flange. See, it's a flat spot?

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah, I see the flat spot.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Well, it isn't lined up.

ROGER VON GROTE: Oh, it isn't.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: It's going.

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah, it is.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Hold it right there.

ROGER VON GROTE: That's it.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Well, it fell in.

VERNON RICH: Are you crying? Are you so happy? Are those tears of joy? You got it.

RICHARD CRENNA: The weeks of work are paying off. The ruder has been fitted and four new engines are in place. The last major job is the propellers.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: The propellers came out of a prop shop in Tucson, and they've been overhauled, but they haven't been final-assembled yet. We'll put those together and hand them on. But I don't anticipate any problem with that. I've done that before and they usually go together pretty easy. These are awful big propellers, though, the biggest I've ever dealt with.

RICHARD CRENNA: Carefully balanced in a workshop back home, they have to be assembled in the right sequence, or they'll rip the engines apart.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Oh, Vernon, I stepped right on your foot.

VERNON RICH: That's all right.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: OK. Go on in.

VERNON RICH: Oop, oop. The ring fell off.

ROGER VON GROTE: This way?

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Yeah. Put it on the —

VERNON RICH: Shit.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: The thing needs to be wiped off. It's probably got sand all over it now. Set it down here. Set it down. Here, let me have it.

CECILIO GRANDE: Right.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Up. OK. You got it. All right, here we go. Let's go. Hup. OK. Set it down.

CECILIO GRANDE: Damn! Look at that!

DARRYL GREENAMYER: See, that's what happens when you have the first team in.

ROGER VON GROTE: Oh, that's right.

RICHARD CRENNA: Sixteen feet across and weighing almost a ton, they're difficult to maneuver.

VERNON RICH: OK. That looks good. Whoa, whoa.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: We're going to have to come down about an inch and a half first.

RICK KRIEGE: How's the frame, Vern?

VERNON RICH: OK.

RICK KRIEGE: A little bit more. OK. Hold it.

VERNON RICH: OK. That's it.

RICK KRIEGE: OK. Now, you should be able to rock it.

RICHARD CRENNA: Now it's time to start an engine. It's the first real test of weeks of exhausting work, and the engine refuses to start. Rick thinks he knows what's wrong.

RICK KRIEGE: Would you get me a pair of tin snips? No, no. It takes pressure. The carburetor doesn't want to work.

RICHARD CRENNA: The carburetor needs adjusting.

RICK KRIEGE: Yay! Yippee!

RICHARD CRENNA: Everyone is jubilant, but still, only one engine has been tested. Time is running out fast, and Vernon is still working on the other three.

VERNON RICH: We've got to hook everything up to them to make sure that they work. We've got to put the magnetos on, the generators, all the fuel system, the oil system. It probably takes twelve, fourteen hours after the time you stick it on there, per motor, to actually get them going. And that's in a nice heated hangar with all the tools that you need. So, when it's blowing, blowing snow sideways, it takes a little bit longer. And we'll fix it; we'll get it going.

RICHARD CRENNA: The last major hurdle is a runway. Darryl uses the bulldozer to level the ground, but the heavy rain has left the tundra waterlogged, with shallow lakes dotting the surface. Normally, a B-29 will use a runway of over five thousand feet, but the most Darryl can hope for is two thousand feet of dry earth to take off in.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: This is the worst spot of all, right here, and it's really at a critical distance.

ROGER VON GROTE: Well, you know, like you were saying two days ago, there was no water here, so hopefully, with three or four good days—

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Yeah.

ROGER VON GROTE: —just like this, this water won't even be here.

RICHARD CRENNA: It's August the 22nd, and the first sunset at midnight signals the approach of the polar winter. Finally, all four engines have their controls and fuel systems connected and are ready to be tested. Darryl climbs into the cockpit and the first engine is turned over.

VERNON RICH: It's a beautiful sight!

CECILIO GRANDE: Incredible, yes!

RICHARD CRENNA: The engines will have to run perfectly to lift the giant bomber from such a short runway. Rick knows that everything needs to be double-checked.

RICK KRIEGE: Why don't you stand off on that side and look down there and see if you can see any oil leaks. I'm going to go around here and see if I can find anything.

RICHARD CRENNA: Work continues on the engines, eliminating oil leaks and making sure that everything will work as it should.

RICK KRIEGE: This one's got an oil leak. That one's got a loose push rod tube.

RICHARD CRENNA: It seems that the flight of the Kee Bird will be only a few days away. The Caribou departs for Thule to pick up more fuel for the bomber, but just as success seems within reach, Rick has become ill. For several weeks, he's been taking painkillers for what he's insisted is a badly twisted back. Most days, he's faced the grueling schedule in great pain. He has now collapsed and can no longer do any work. Then the Caribou returns with a serious mechanical problem, one that puts everybody's safety in jeopardy.

ROGER VON GROTE: We lost partial power on the right engine of the Caribou, and we thought it was probably a cylinder problem, and then when we arrived, we found that we had a stuck exhaust valve, and it was hitting the top of the piston, and we need a cylinder to get out of here with any kind of safety at all.

RICHARD CRENNA: The winter finally hits, bringing gale-force winds and freezing rain. The temperature plummets. Soon, life here will be impossible. If they don't get out now, they never will. The first of the winter snow is settling on the camp. After two months, time has beaten Darryl. Work on the Kee Bird stops, as everyone's attention focusses on the Caribou. The Caribou is their lifeline, and Vernon and Cecilio struggle to fit a spare cylinder. Despite inadequate tools and freezing fingers, they manage to do it, but the engine still has a serious oil leak, and there's no guarantee it won't give out altogether as they fly over the glacier back to Thule.

CECILIO GRANDE: You fly this now?

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah. If we could put oil in the engine while we're flying, then we have absolutely no problem at all.

RICHARD CRENNA: Every flight of the Caribou is a flirtation with death. This is ever more so. As ice is knocked off the Caribou's wing, Darryl faces up to the fact that he can go no further.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: I'm just going to have to sit down and take a long thinking session about what we're going to do. I haven't given up. We've got too much—We're too close. The airplane is essentially ready to fly. We never did get a runway suitable to take off this year. The winter caught us. Rick is sicker than a dog; we've got to get him out of here, and probably to a hospital. And so, things are coming to a screeching halt.

RICHARD CRENNA: At last, they're ready to pull out, leaving the Kee Bird where it has been for nearly fifty years. Halfway through the flight, the Caribou's right engine loses power, but they manage to struggle on one engine into Thule. Rick is carried off into an ambulance. Suffering from internal bleeding, he is flown to a hospital in Canada, and rushed to surgery. Two weeks later, this kind and gentle man, a resourceful and highly-skilled engineer, died of a blood clot. Darryl could barely come to terms with Rick's death, but having come so far, he was not prepared to give up his struggle to recover the B-29. It would mean bitter disappointment and financial disaster. Nine months later, with the Caribou still out of action at Thule, Darryl returns to the Kee Bird in a chartered Twin Otter. He has enlarged the team with the inclusion of Matt Jackson and John Cater, both specialists in radial engines, an old friend Al Hansen, and Thad Dulin, a qualified B-29 flight engineer. The temperature never rises above twenty-four degrees Fahrenheit. The cold makes the work far more difficult, but Darryl's plan is to use the surface of the frozen lake as a runway.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: We were trying to get here as late as possible before the ice melted so that we could use the lake for the runway, and yet not have miserable cold weather.

RICHARD CRENNA: The lake is covered in snowdrifts, but Darryl's main concern is how long it will remain frozen.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: I'd say two weeks, we've got to get on that lake or we're in trouble.

RICHARD CRENNA: The snow has piled up around the Kee Bird, and the engines need to be thoroughly checked after the winter. The new team is all business. The biting cold is a spur to their determination to get the job done. Darryl is concerned about the effect the cold will have on the engines and takes his time warming them up.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: She's running at low RPM until the oil temperature gets up.

TEAM MEMBER: How long will that take?

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Ten minutes.

RICHARD CRENNA: They discover a number of oil leaks.

MATT JACKSON: We're fighting little gremlins right now because of the weather. You know, moisture and cold really wreaks havoc on an airplane. You can bring a brand-new airplane up here and let it sit for a week, and you'll have the same kind of problems.

RICHARD CRENNA: The engine cowlings have to be taken off and replaced every time something needs fixing in the engines. And every time an engine stops, great care has to be taken before it can be restarted. After a week of work, the engines are running smoothly, and the oil leaks have been eliminated. The flight of the Kee Bird is approaching, and Darryl turns his thoughts to the runway.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: What I'm concerned about is the drifts on the lake. I tried to flatten them out with the bulldozer and the grater that we've got, but I may have created more problem than I cured, because it left little mounds. The problem with the B-29 is there's no nose wheel steering, and so, when I hit one of these mounds with the right gear, it's going to pull right. It's a problem. We're just going to have to get out and try it.

RICHARD CRENNA: The engines cool quickly in this climate, and an oil-burning heater pipes hot air under the cowlings to keep them close to working temperature. Preparations get underway for the first flight. Darryl must be ready as soon as the conditions are right.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Today is a good day. It's warmer, and what we'll do is, we'll start at one end. We're preheating one engine now, and we'll start it. Then we'll start the next one, and then get to the third one. By the time we get to the third one, we'll probably go back and run the first one and then get—So, we get them all up to temperature at the same time. And then, once we get them up there, we've got to keep them there. That's why it's so critical to, once we get everything warmed up and ready to go, that we don't dally: we go. Otherwise, we've got to start the whole process again, and that's burning fuel, which is a precious commodity up here. You know, when the engines are running and there's a surge of adrenaline, I want to get in it and go. And I think it'll make it.

RICHARD CRENNA: Darryl strides to the cockpit. The dream that has obsessed him for three years is just hours from being realized. Thad sits at the flight engineer's console to start all four engines. Instruments that have remained dormant for fifty years once again register life in the machine. The giant radial engines can deliver over two thousand horsepower each. Thad makes last-minute adjustments to the oil pressure and the carburetors to get the engines running sweetly.

THAD DULIN: I don't have much in the way of nose oil pressure on three, Darryl, but it's coming up now. The manifold pressure gauge just came loose. There she comes.

RICHARD CRENNA: As the propellers shimmer in the sunlight, Darryl puts the coordinates for Thule into the newly-installed satellite navigation system. The plane has frozen into the mud and snow, and it takes maximum power to break the wheels free. The nose wheel can't be controlled, and at slow speeds, Darryl has to adjust the engine power to steer the plane. Finally, it is moving in a wide circle, out onto the lake, on its way toward the end of the runway. The plane is bounced and shaken by the frozen snowdrifts. Suddenly, smoke can be seen pouring from the windows in the cockpit. The auxiliary power unit, a stand-by generator, was thrown from its mounting in the rear fuselage, and caught fire.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Get another fire extinguisher!

RICHARD CRENNA: Fortunately, the crew managed to jump clear. Darryl shouts for more extinguishers, but it's too late. The fire has already swept through the plane. He can do nothing but stand and watch as this irreplaceable piece of aviation history is consumed by fire. With it go the years of planning and hard work by so many people.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: It's gonna burn to the ground. Apparently, the APU was left running in the tail, and the fuel tank broke loose and dumped fuel on the APU and started the fire in the tail. That's where the fire extinguisher was, but we couldn't get to it. I don't think it would have made a difference which way we took off. It would have been airborne a third of the way across the lake.

MATT JACKSON: Well, I almost threw my bag in before you pulled out, because I figured we were gonna go. So I just put my tools in.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Where are they, up front?

MATT JACKSON: No. They were in the tail where the fire was.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Oh, shit.

MATT JACKSON: They're (expletive deleted) gone.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: My tools are up front.

MATT JACKSON: Well, it wasn't because you didn't try.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Yeah. It was ready to go. That's the real tragedy of it. I mean, we were so close. Success was right there. It was right there. But, this is my game, and I'd do it again.

RICHARD CRENNA: Darryl had faith that the B-29 would fly once again, with him at the controls, but instead, it remains on the frozen surface. When the ice melts, what's left of the Kee Bird, the new engines and propellers, will sink and come to rest on the dark bottom of the lake, forever.

ANNOUNCER: Part Two of this NOVA special is next. The Titanic. When she sank, her identical twin, Britannic, was redesigned with safety in mind. But as a World War One hospital ship, the Britannic went down even faster. Join the search for Titanic's Lost Sister, coming up next.

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ANNOUNCER: Now, Part Two of this two-hour NOVA special. The Titanic. In 1912, the unthinkable happens when this unsinkable liner sinks. In the aftermath, sister ship Britannic is refitted for safety and stability, but during World War I, Britannic goes down twice as fast. What went wrong? An ambitious team goes high tech to find the answer. "Titanic's Lost Sister" is next.

NOVA is funded by Prudential.

Prudential. Insurance, health care, real estate, and financial services. For more than a century, bringing strength and stability to America's families.

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STACY KEACH: Aboard this ship, moored off the island of Crete, an undersea exploration prepares to get underway. Oceanographer Bob Ballard, renowned for his discovery of Titanic in 1985, is setting out to explore an intriguing wreck, Titanic's forgotten sister, Britannic. The expedition will need an impressive array of deep sea technology, and Ballard does not travel lightly. Besides the crew of the support ship Carolyn Chouest, he has in tow three historians, two remotely-operated vehicles, or ROVs, equipped with cameras, and a small US Navy nuclear submarine, the NR-1. The object of his search has a remarkable heritage. Sister to Titanic, a ship whose fate still captures our imagination, Britannic is the last of a formidable trio built by the White Star Line in an effort to dominate the North Atlantic passenger trade. Her history is cloaked in intrigue. Britannic's sinking while serving as a hospital ship during World War I is still the subject of much debate. Was she the victim of a deliberate German submarine attack, or did she hit a mine intended for a military target? The historians on board, Simon Mills, the only published author on Britannic, and Eric Sauder, an expert on the White Star Line, are hoping this expedition will resolve the mystery. A third expert, Ken Marschall, is the foremost illustrator of Titanic and other notable twentieth century ships. The technical accuracy of Ken's work has made him invaluable to Ballard in past expeditions.

KEN MARSCHALL: This is a painting that I did about five years ago of the Britannic as we think it may have looked. To see a twin sister ship of the Titanic, virtually identical in most respects, her dimensions and so forth, to sense the size of that ship on the ocean floor, and particularly in a shallow enough depth where I can actually see the ship with filtered sunlight coming through the ocean. It should be an eerie and awesome experience.

STACY KEACH: Ballard is also excited at the prospect of seeing Titanic's sister ship lying on the ocean floor. The discovery of Titanic was the highlight of his career. Since then, thousands of objects have been salvaged from the wreck site. Powerless to stop it, he has explored other wrecks in the pursuit of a personal vision.

BOB BALLARD: I've been really searching for the optimum piece of history to experiment on and try to create the first undersea museum. I thought it might have been the Lusitania, but when we went out there, it was so tragic to see how destroyed it was. There are certain things we must preserve. I mean, the Titanic was incredible. The feelings, the power of going there was like going to Gettysburg the day after the battle. Why should I be the only one that gets to go to a place, and as soon as I leave, it's leveled? That's what's really brought me here to the Britannic. It has not been pillaged, and in very few years, the technology will make it possible for people, in the luxury of their homes, on the information highway, to visit this site live. I would love to protect this ship, set it aside, and let people visit it. And I'm going to do it. I'm going to give it my best shot, anyway.

STACY KEACH: Ballard is gambling, but after eighty years under water, Britannic will be in good enough condition to display as the first undersea museum. Before he can determine that, he and David Olivier, the commander of the NR-1, must first locate the wreck. The NR-1 and the Carolyn Chouest make their way to the Kea Channel. Britannic lies four hundred feet below the surface of the Aegean off the island of Kea. Below decks on the support ship, the historians pore over the models of the ill-fated sister ships.

KEN MARSCHALL: The White Star struck out so badly with this, the Big Three.

STACY KEACH: But the work at hand cannot obscure the fact that for explorer and historian alike, the object of their search is not just another shipwreck. Britannic and her sisters possess a mystique. They are powerful symbols that speak to us from another time. The largest and most luxurious of their day, they were among the first of a new breed of super liner that would revolutionize transatlantic travel. While their upper decks catered to the wealthy, the real money was made down below, in steerage.

JOHN MAXTONE-GRAHAM: Immigrants, millions of immigrants by 1905 was the first million passenger year for the North Atlantic liners—wanted to get from the Old World to the New. And the only way they could go was by sea, and that accounts for two things. First, the enormous number of ocean liners that were built for the North Atlantic, and second, their incredible size.

STACY KEACH: Belfast, Ireland. In the deserted corners of the modern Harland and Wolff Shipyard are visible reminders of the massive effort it took to build these very special transatlantic steamers. The pride of the White Star Line: Olympic, first of the class; legendary Titanic; and lastly, Britannic, the forgotten sister. The magnificent interiors of these ships have either been lost to the ocean depths or dismantled. This room is all that remains.

PAUL LOUDEN-BROWN: We're in the White Swan Hotel, in the interior of the lounge of the Olympic. It's all that we have left from her. There are bits and pieces of her all over England, but perhaps nothing quite as lovely as the lounge. And it's a splendid reminder of those fabulous days of 1911, 1912, before the war, before all these wonderful ships were swept away. The Gilded Era.

STACY KEACH: Despite the attention lavished on decor, it was also an era of technological innovation. Perhaps Harland and Wolff's greatest accomplishment was the simultaneous construction of Olympic and Titanic in just four years. At the time of their launching, their unprecedented size and luxury made headlines. But as we recall their story today, it was the failure of their innovative safety systems that captures our interest. The Olympic-class ships were designed with fifteen transverse bulkheads extending above the water line, creating sixteen compartments separated by massive watertight doors. In the event of flooding, the captain could instantly close those doors from the bridge by means of an electric switch. An innovative backup system allowed the doors to be closed both manually and by a float mechanism. Damage could be sustained to any two adjoining compartments, or the first four starting at the bow, without endangering the ship. This system of safety features would prompt the most reputable of British shipbuilding magazines to call the Olympic class "practically unsinkable."

JOHN MAXTONE-GRAHAM: That word "unsinkable" came, actually, from the great bible of the British shipping industry called The Shipbuilder and Marine Engine Builder. This was the great journal of shipping that every new ship appeared in, and lengthy articles were written about the ship and all the safety systems. And in this article, they talked about the watertight compartments, which every ship had. And it said if these doors were closed, it would render the ship "practically unsinkable." Fair enough. Well, somebody grabbed "unsinkable"—not the White Star Line—out of that report and circulated it on both sides of the Atlantic as though Titanic were unsinkable.

STACY KEACH: It was an unfortunate label. As Britannic's keel was laid in Belfast, the greatest maritime disaster of this century would claim Titanic and in the same moment, alter Britannic's fate. Titanic collided with an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sank in less than three hours, taking some 1,500 souls with her and making the limitation of her much-touted safety features tragically clear.

KEN MARSCHALL: The iceberg came through here, started scraping along, scraping off rivet heads, buckling the plates, tearing the seams apart. Not a big gash like a can opener, but just a scraping that buckled the plates in. It went from here for 240 feet or so aft, two feet into the coal bunker of boiler room number five. The bow started to sink. The water eventually, inevitably, came up over that bulkhead and flowed into the next compartment and into the next. And it was just a mathematical certainty, plain and simple. No matter how you sliced it, the ship's going down.

STACY KEACH: Titanic was doomed. But why the staggering loss of life? The time it took for the ship to sink should have allowed ample opportunity to evacuate all on board. The disaster reached epic proportion because of a bureaucratic oversight. The Olympic-class ships had far too few lifeboats due to outdated Board of Trade regulations. The regulations had been written in 1894 when the largest ship afloat was considerably smaller than Titanic. Of the more than 2,000 passengers and crew on board, only 705 would survive. The disaster stunned the world. White Star immediately recalled Olympic from service and halted construction on Britannic. Harland and Wolff set about correcting every flaw that might have contributed to Titanic's demise.

CHARLES HAAS: In the case of the Britannic, that was fairly easy to do because the ship had not advanced very far in terms of its construction. In the case of the Olympic, the reconstruction was so extensive that it took the ship out of service for six months.

STACY KEACH: The safety features of these two ships were completely overhauled. They were fitted with an inner skin that ran the length of the boiler and engine room compartments. Five of the bulkheads were extended up as far as the bridge deck. These precautions would allow both ships to float with six compartments flooded, two more than Titanic. Belfast, February, 1914. Britannic is finally launched. The new passenger liner was hailed by the shipping line and the builders to be "as perfect a specimen of man's creative power as is possible to conceive." As the Britannic slid down the ways, a cataclysm was just around the corner, a war that would engulf not only Europe, but the world. Even as the last of her grand interiors were being installed, Britannic was requisitioned by the British Admiralty and transformed into a hospital ship. She completed five successful missions to the Mediterranean theater of war before sinking mysteriously on her sixth outbound voyage. Today, she lies at the bottom of a sea she was never intended to sail, a casualty of war, her mysteries as yet unsolved. The object of Dr. Ballard's search. Tomorrow, Ballard will make his first dive on the Britannic.

BOB BALLARD: Well, we're at the end of the first day, and we're transiting north from Crete from the sub base we just left, and sometime tomorrow morning, we'll arrive on scene. The ship was traveling northeast. It struck something, whether it was a torpedo or a mine. The captain immediately began to try to save his ship and beach it, so he began a quick turn to starboard, and heading back to Kea, but before he got to the beach, he sank right there. This is where the British say they were sunk, and this is where Cousteau, twenty years ago, said he actually found the ship, so, obviously, we believe his position more.

STACY KEACH: In 1975, Jacques Cousteau made the first search for the Britannic. His discovery of the wreck was complicated by misleading coordinates reported by the British Admiralty in 1916, which were off by eight miles. Yet another mystery surrounding this enigmatic ship.

BOB BALLARD: But, we're—You know, we've got to relocate it. We don't know exactly where it is. So that, first and foremost, we'll transit over from the support ship, get in the sub, and go down and find it.

STACY KEACH: The support ship and the nuclear submarine have arrived in the Kea Channel and are now stationed over Cousteau's coordinates. Ballard boards the NR-1 for the first exploratory dive to locate the Britannic.

BOB BALLARD: All right. Let's dive.

STACY KEACH: The NR-1 is a one-of-a-kind submarine, a US Navy ship designed to conduct scientific research and covert missions. Like all other US submarines, the NR-1 has many secrets. What the Navy will acknowledge is a diving depth of 3,000 feet and a submerged speed of 3.5 knots. The NR-1 is only twelve and a half feet in diameter and 145 feet long, half the length of a Navy attack submarine. Two thirds of that space houses its nuclear power plant. The crew of eleven works, eats, and sleeps in the remaining one third. It's a little cramped. The submarine has cameras mounted on the hull, giving the search team many views of the undersea environment. But the real work of detection and navigation is covered by sonar. NR-1's Deep Submergence/Obstacle Avoidance sonar has a classified range and frequency. Ballard hopes that if the Britannic is even close to this last reported position, this powerful sonar will detect it quickly. Sonar was essential to the 1975 expedition. After weeks of searching, Jacques Cousteau turned to Dr. Harold Edgerton of MIT and his new device, the Side Scan Sonar, for help. Edgerton discovered that by transmitting a sound pulse toward the ocean floor at an oblique angle rather than straight down as conventional sonar does, the signal would reveal much more detail about the ocean floor and anything that might lay on it. With the British Admiralty's coordinates so far off Britannic's true position, Cousteau may never have located the wreck without Edgerton's device. Side Scan Sonar allowed Cousteau to locate Britannic and revolutionized underwater exploration. Over an hour into the dive, and still no trace of the ship.

BOB BALLARD: There! That's the ship!

STACY KEACH: The sonar has locked on Britannic.

BOB BALLARD: This looks like the rudder and propeller's right there. That's the sweep of the hull. That would be the bottom. That would be the superstructure. So, it looks like we're coming in on the stern. OK. You're coming in this way. You're coming in from the northeast. That sounds right. Then we'll see whether we see a bow or a propeller. That'll tell us. But it looks like it's believable. Thank you, Mr. Cousteau. Captain.

STACY KEACH: These ghostly black and white images from the NR-1's cameras offer a tantalizing first look at this once-proud leviathan. The second-class smoking room where gentlemen would retire after dinner. The first-class promenade deck where society's elite were meant to stroll. The lifeboat davits, still in position to lower the boats. The individual images are promising, but they fail to give Ballard the overview necessary for an accurate picture of the ship's condition. For that, he will rely on the modern version of Dr. Edgerton's Side Scan Sonar. Printed out on board the Chouest, the Side Scan images are unrolled for all to see.

BOB BALLARD: Look at that! Unbelievable! Oh, wow! Look at that! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! That's a photograph. Look at the bridge. Look at the docking collar—docking bridge—right there. Look at that!

KEN MARSCHALL: Look at this. It even shows cables lying on the hull, the shadow of the cables and every streak in the hull plating, which visually, from the submarine, you can hardly even make out.

STACY KEACH: The sonar's sophisticated imaging system reveals an amazing sight. The silhouetted shape of the Britannic in its entirety. Ballard and his team are elated.

BOB BALLARD: Look at this. Every—The slightest little relief. Here's where you see the top of the davits, and that's where the compass tower shows up. Right where it's supposed to be. Look at that. You can see through the rudder to the other propeller. Ken, you're out of a job.

STACY KEACH: This is the first evidence that Britannic is as well-preserved as Ballard had hoped. Here lies a nearly-intact version of Titanic.

BOB BALLARD: Let's talk about what we're going to do next.

KEN MARSCHALL: So, I would like to just get the NR-1 in position and go and image it for a while. Put the NR-1 down and approach it, and then try to move down into the boat deck area, or on that boat deck.

BOB BALLARD: Now, these davits are here, though. Those are —

STACY KEACH: Tomorrow, Ballard will return to the wreck with the remotely-operated camera platforms for the first in-depth photographic survey of Britannic. The color images of this once-majestic ship should reveal a moment frozen in time: the moment of Britannic's sinking. It was 1916. Fighting had spread from the trenches of Belgium and France to the Mediterranean. The struggle to control the Straits of the Dardanelles, a narrow passage linking the Aegean with the Black Sea, would claim tens of thousands of lives. As the tide of wounded swelled, the British Admiralty was faced with the task of transporting them back to England.

JACK EATON: The ships that had been requisitioned for use, mainly Union Castle ships, were not providing adequate space to remove the sick and wounded.

CHARLES HAAS: The whole system, actually, in the eastern Mediterranean, was on the verge of breaking down. You have these six or eight thousand ton ships and literally thousands of casualties occurring during the course of a given week. So, within a very short time, the largest ships available, Aquitania, Mauritania, and Britannic, are placed into hospital ship service.

STACY KEACH: On Britannic's return trips to England filled with wounded, every minute was devoted to patients. But on her outbound journeys, the medical staff had little to do, leaving time to enjoy the amenities of a first-class cruise. The sixth outbound journey started no differently. As they entered the Kea Channel, the mood was relaxed. But a dangerous and unpredictable threat lurked beneath the sea: the submarine. U-boats could strike without warning. They could fire torpedoes or lay underwater mine barrages. In either case, Britannic was defenseless. November 21, 1916. At eight AM, the medical staff had just sat down to breakfast, when, without warning. . .

JACK EATON: There was a shudder that went through the ship. That's the way Sheila Mitchell described it. And she said that everybody froze.

STACY KEACH: Britannic had been hit. Had she been returning to England with her full quota of 3,000 patients, the loss of life would have rivaled Titanic's. But thanks to the efficient lifeboat system installed after Titanic's sinking, most on board would escape. Sheila Mitchell, a nurse on the Britannic, was interviewed by Jacques Cousteau.

SHEILA MacBETH-MITCHELL: Everybody's heart was in their mouths. When she was turning, of course, I was thinking, 'Oh, my trunks will be sliding under the other girl's bed, and all the oranges and lemons I bought in Naples will be on the floor. And where is my clock?' You know. Things like that.

STACY KEACH: The speed with which Britannic sank is one of her great mysteries. This period footage can only simulate the awe-inspiring sight of watching such a massive ship disappear. Britannic, a ship that was fully redesigned to benefit from the lessons of Titanic, somehow sank in a mere fifty-five minutes.

KEN MARSCHALL: The Britannic was in the very early stages of her construction when the Titanic sank. They stopped the construction and rethought everything in order to make Britannic really, really safe. And they learned from the Titanic. They made the bulkheads much, much higher. They gave her a complete double hull, a double skin. So, it just covered all the bases. And here she went down in less than an hour.

STACY KEACH: For Simon Mills and Eric Sauder, the bigger mystery surrounds the cause of the initial explosion, a mine or a torpedo.

SIMON MILLS: At the time of the sinking, everybody thought it was a torpedo. It had to be, you know? They were at war. The Germans, the filthy Hun, they wanted to sort of sink this ship. It was a powerful competitor, after all. They had to sink it, and torpedo was the only way to do it. As time went by, it wasn't quite so clear cut. Even the English officer carrying out the inquiry decided that there was no definite evidence one way or the other to say mine or torpedo.

JACQUES COUSTEAU: I propose to drink to the Britannic, to the splendid ship that she been on board and that has a. . .

STACY KEACH: Sixty years after her sinking, Jacques Cousteau gathered together Britannic's remaining survivors in an attempt to uncover what happened that morning.

JACQUES COUSTEAU: What is your opinion? Was the ship torpedoed, or did it hit a mine?

SURVIVOR 1: Oh, torpedoed, without a doubt.

JACQUES COUSTEAU: Without a doubt, torpedoed. Thank you. Now, you, miss.

SURVIVOR 2: Without a doubt, torpedoed.

SURVIVOR 3: At least one, one torpedo, at least.

SURVIVOR 4: My opinion is she got torpedoed.

SURVIVOR 5: I'd say torpedoed.

SURVIVOR 6: It was a mine, without a shadow of doubt.

STACY KEACH: The next and most difficult phase of the expedition will attempt to solve these mysteries. It will be the first joint operation involving the support ship, the ROVs, and the NR-1. Ballard has promised the historians that he will try to explore the area where the explosion occurred. If the ROVs can maneuver into the damaged area, the hidden recesses of the gash might provide clues to Britannic's mysterious explosion and rapid sinking. As the ROVs are lowered over the side, the tension mounts. The NR-1 is in position, the powerful lights illuminating the wreck. Ballard and his team are in the command station on board the Carolyn Chouest. Monitors, connected with the ROV cameras, are the focus of the room. Ballard directs the ROV pilot who controls the depth, direction, and speed of the robot from a distance of more than 300 feet. All eyes are on the monitors waiting for the first clear image of this once-majestic ship.

BOB BALLARD: There it is. We're at the hull top.

STACY KEACH: The Britannic: bigger, safer, more luxurious than her sisters, but destined never to carry a paying passenger.

BOB BALLARD: Think of the millions and millions of hours laborers put into these ships in Belfast, at Harland and Wolff. Years and years of effort on the part of so many people. An iceberg is one thing. That's an act of God. But to have mankind blow up such a wonderful work, that's a waste.

STACY KEACH: Britannic's massive propellers, twenty-three feet in diameter, evoke memories of a gruesome incident. Following the explosion, the ship lay motionless. The captain, isolated on the bridge, was unaware that the crew had already begun to load lifeboats. In a last-ditch effort to save the ship, he gave the order to start up the propellers and head for nearby Kea Island.

SHEILA MacBETH-MITCHELL: They wanted to beach the boat where there was sand, the other side of the island. And so, the minute we touched the water, she went on and the propellers were coming up, turning. And at the back, it was a whirlpool. The lifeboat in front of me and the one behind were drawn in by the propellers, which cut them to ribbons. If anybody escaped from those boats, it was because they jumped out and perhaps could swim away.

STACY KEACH: One near casualty of the propeller incident was nurse Violet Jessop. Her story is remarkable as one of the few known to survive passage on all three White Star sisters.

JOHN MAXTONE-GRAHAM: Violet Jessop, whom I had interviewed for a book, told me that she was not only on the Titanic when it went down, she was also on the Olympic when it had not a very serious accident, but there was a collision in Southampton water. Then, the hat trick that she was also on the Britannic as a nurse's aid is extraordinary. Violet told me that she got into a lifeboat, which was lowered down, and when it reached the water, was cast loose from the blocks, the descending blocks, she suddenly saw everybody jumping out. So, Violet jumped over the side and thought she was going to sink forever, and finally came up and hit the bottom of a lifeboat. Her head hit it as she came up. Then she groped around in the dark, thinking her end was nigh, and found a hand, a man's hand, which she could tell was alive, and they held hands together and came up to the surface.

STACY KEACH: Leaving the propellers behind, Ballard guides the ROVs toward the bow for the first look at the most dangerous part of the wreck, the jagged gash caused by the explosion. The damage, depicted by Marschall based on Cousteau's accounts, gives Ballard reason for concern. The jagged hull plating could easily sever the ROV's umbilical cord.

BOB BALLARD: There's the beginning of the gash. So now, go left, and drive the gash line down to the left.

STACY KEACH: Marschall and Mills have switched to the second ROV monitor for the long-anticipated look at the damaged hull. The images from this ROV, NASA's Voyager, are in stereo, and with the 3-D glasses, the two experts can see much more detail.

SIMON MILLS: That must have been the impact as it hit the deck.

KEN MARSCHALL: The bow is buckled off to the starboard side, and we're just seeing that stubbed toe effect of it, just the bow buckled in and twisted and the rest of the ship just bent apart, buckled and collapsed into the sand. So, we're seeing this thirty-, forty-foot-wide gap down at the keel level, it looked at if it was; at the bilge, it looked about thirty or forty feet wide. And it can't be the damage actually caused by the mine or torpedo, because the ship would have sunk in five or ten minutes with a hole that huge.

STACY KEACH: The massive damage caused as Britannic's bow impacted with the ocean floor obscures all traces of the initial hole caused by the explosion. There is no evidence here than can shed more light on the issue of mine versus torpedo. But the gash may hold the answer to a different question. Did Britannic's watertight doors fail to close? A single mine or a torpedo of that era would have damaged no more than one or two compartments. The watertight doors should have contained the flooding, allowing the ship to float indefinitely. Yet, she sank in less than an hour. What went wrong? The evidence is buried deep inside the gash.

BOB BALLARD: Pan right. OK. Go over there in the clean area. Go to clean water. Go back! Kick back now! Now!

STACY KEACH: Ballard has pulled the ROV back from the wreck after a close call. The watertight doors the team wants to see are deep inside the wreckage. But Ballard does not want to risk losing an ROV on a second attempt.

KEN MARSCHALL: This side has a large shifted area of hull. It comes down right here, and then it comes up on a different plane, and there's this large section that sticks out maybe like that.

STACY KEACH: The historians, denied an in-depth investigation, must piece together the disaster with the existing ROV footage and eyewitness accounts.

SIMON MILLS: Here was the Britannic. Effectively, she was a commission ship in the Admiralty in a war zone, and she was traveling with the doors open. It should never have happened. The only thing we can assume is that 'round about eight o'clock in the morning, when the damage occurred, the explosion, the watertight doors must have been open so that the firemen could change their watch. Now, the firemen normally bunked in the forward end of the ship and maybe some aft, and to get to their boiler rooms, they would walk down a fireman's tunnel into these specific compartments, all six along here. Now, come eight o'clock in the morning when the watch changes, the doors would have been open so that they could get through with a minimum of fuss, which is fine, no problem. But unfortunately, the Britannic happened to hit whatever she hit at the exact wrong moment.

STACY KEACH: But even if the doors were open when the flooding began, they should have closed automatically.

ERIC SAUDER: Maybe when the explosion occurred, the bulkhead that the watertight door was in shifted slightly so the jamb went out of alignment so the door couldn't be forced closed.

STACY KEACH: Ballard's ROVs reveal another possible clue to Britannic's rapid sinking. Many of the lower portholes were wide open.

SIMON MILLS: A number of the portholes along this particular deck here should not have been open, but they were. Now, strictly speaking, they should not have been. But it was a case of, they were arriving at Mudros later that morning, they were airing the ward for the patients who would be going in there.

ERIC SAUDER: As the ship settled by the bow and listed to starboard, it brought the portholes under water, which let water into the undamaged compartments.

STACY KEACH: If these theories are correct, then all of the carefully-designed safety features installed after Titanic were undone by human error. Operating in a war zone, Britannic was an accident waiting to happen. The final and most dramatic mystery remains. Was Britannic's sinking accidental or deliberate? As a hospital ship, Britannic was protected by the Geneva Convention. Would a German U-boat commander deliberately torpedo a Red Cross ship? Cousteau's team suggested that Britannic might have been carrying an illegal cargo of armaments and munitions. If true, this would account for the British Admiralty's desire to obscure the exact location of the wreck.

SIMON MILLS: Why was the wreck so, so badly misplaced? I mean, eight miles is quite considerable when you consider there are very easily-identifiable landmarks in sight. Basically, the theories that are coming up are the Admiralty deliberately misplaced the ship so that there could be no exploration. Had divers gone down, they may have found that the Britannic was, indeed, carrying weapons, which she should not have been.

STACY KEACH: But in the many hours surveying the wreck, Ballard found no trace of armaments. With no evidence of a motive, does the torpedo theory still make sense?

SURVIVORS: I'd say torpedoed. Torpedoed. Torpedoed. Torpedoed. Torpedoed.

STACY KEACH: To the survivors, it certainly did.

JOHN MAXTONE-GRAHAM: One thing we mustn't forget about the First World War, in Britain, particularly, was the absolutely rabid paranoia about what the Germans would do. So, the consensus was when the Britannic went down, which not many people knew, you see. Don't forget, this was cloaked in wartime secrecy. This was not something that was as publicized as the Titanic was. The perception was that it was somehow a German torpedo. Now, beastly as they used to say the Germans could be, I don't think they would have torpedoed a hospital ship.

STACY KEACH: Yet, in February, 1915, the hospital ship Asturias was attacked with torpedoes in the English Channel. The ship took evasive action, but in this case, the markings of a hospital ship were no defense against an overzealous U-boat commander.

SIMON MILLS: If was after the war that things began to be a little bit clearer. Among the captured German papers, there was evidence that the U-73, a German long-range mine-laying submarine, had laid mines in the Kea Channel at the end of October. Now, that was a full month before the Britannic was in the area, but it would appear that this particular barrage was in exactly the same place that the Britannic was sunk.

STACY KEACH: The German submarine logbook provides the strongest piece of evidence to counter the torpedo theory.

CHARLES HAAS: The U-73 belonged to a class consisting of U-71 through U-80. And these were relatively small submarines, and they were mine-layers. They were not really known for their torpedoing capabilities, although they did have some.

STACY KEACH: Commander Gustav Zeis's logbook, made public after the war, gave precise coordinates for the placement of twelve mines in the Kea Channel. The U-boat dove to a depth of sixty-five feet to avoid detection.

CHARLES HAAS: We also have the interview done by British Intelligence Services of a prisoner of war. He said, without any doubt, the Britannic had hit a mine that had been laid by the U-73.

STACY KEACH: If Britannic were sunk by a mine, then evidence should remain on the ocean floor in the form of an anchor and chain that were used to hold the mine in place.

BOB BALLARD: This is the mine, the type of mine that the U-73 laid just before the Britannic passed through this Channel. This is what the Germans claim the ship hit. And the British naturally said it was torpedoed. And so, if we find this, and around it debris, particularly from the bow, then it'll pretty well ice it that it hit a mine.

STACY KEACH: In pursuit of this physical evidence, Ballard will rely on a method of undersea investigation that enabled him to find Titanic when so many before him had failed: the Debris Field Theory.

BOB BALLARD: Everyone sees ships sink, and they see the World War II movies and the torpedo and the ship goes up in the air; it goes down. You never think about what happens after it goes glub-glub. And so, instead of just falling straight to the bottom, which most people would assume, what happens is, the ship breaks up. In the case of the Titanic, it broke in half, and all of these objects went into the water. Some were very heavy, like a safe, and some were very light: deck chairs and gloves and shoes.

STACY KEACH: Ballard found that the underwater current created a systematic trail of debris stretching for more than a mile. This breakthrough enabled him to try a new approach in searching for Titanic.

BOB BALLARD: I realized that I don't want to look for the Titanic. It's only ninety-four feet wide. I want to look for its debris trail, and it fell 12,000 feet. In other words, could I be looking for something that was a mile long instead of ninety-four feet wide? Well, that's a totally different strategy.

STACY KEACH: Ballard's decision to search a wide area for this fallout rather than a narrow one for the ship itself led to the Titanic. In the case of her sister, the logic will be reversed. Since Britannic traveled some fifty-five minutes after the impact, there should be a clear trail of debris leading from the wreck to the anchor chain. The U-boat commander's coordinates and Britannic's last recorded position are added to the equation to help determine the search area. The next step is to send the NR-1 around the wreck to find the start of the debris field. The ROVs are ready to photograph anything the NR-1 might find. An hour passes, and then an exciting discovery. The NR-1 finds Britannic's gigantic funnels virtually intact, strewn in a distinct path leading away from the ship. Funnels are a rare find at a wreck site. The ship's smokestacks, their enormous size belie their fragility.

KEN MARSCHALL: Funnels have been known to just be swept away in strong winds and heavy seas, sometimes, on ships. So, they're not like the hull itself that's really strong. It's very thin metal. I'm amazed that they're still intact, that they're not corroded away. I'm amazed, yeah. Very rare. Four Britannic funnels, still virtually intact.

STACY KEACH: But are they the start of the debris trail?

KEN MARSCHALL: We looked at these two, and then we went out and saw a single funnel. If we go back through the, you know, sight along from the center of the wreck to this funnel and this bunch of funnels and then the next one out there, that that would start us on the trail toward the course the ship was taking and could lead us back through the debris trail to the spot where the mine—We think it was a mine—actually blew up.

STACY KEACH: With the Carolyn Chouest due back in port, time is short to follow this promising lead. Ballard gives the NR-1 instructions to follow the funnels and head toward the U-boat commander's coordinates. The submarine sets off on what Ballard and his team hope will be the Britannic's debris field. The NR-1's cameras are trained on the ocean floor, searching for tell-tale pieces of hull plating. The hours pass. The NR-1 returns with disappointing news. The search has revealed no trace of an anchor chain. In the command station of the Chouest, the historians review the hours of videotape brought back by the submarine, hoping to find some clue that might have been overlooked.

EXPERTS: Now, there's another one of those cylindrical things. . . But see, look at this. . . I mean, you've got a perfectly square. . . Perfectly rectangular. . . Maybe it's a frame. . . It's just like the thing we saw before. . . All these things, nothing has to do with mines, nothing has to do, really, with. . .

SIMON MILLS: That's the interesting thing. We've not found one trace yet of anything to do with the submarine which we know was there. We know she laid the mines. We know she laid two barrages of six mines. And yet, all the scans we've done so far indicate nothing at all.

KEN MARSCHALL: To my mind, it's a simple matter of taking a compass and drawing one-mile radiuses, or radii, out from the wreck site, and we may be just looking too close to the wreck. I mean, it's got to be at least two miles away to the south or to the southwest where these mines were.

SIMON MILLS: The only conclusion we can come to is that the German captain, Gustav Zeis, probably got his position wrong. I have a feeling that they were a bit further to the southwest, somewhere down there.

STACY KEACH: No anchor chain, no debris field, and no more time to search. Without conclusive evidence, the question of whether or not Britannic was the victim of a vicious attack or an unlucky casualty must remain open to speculation. But Ballard is far from disappointed. His vision extends beyond this expedition.

BOB BALLARD: There's something mystical about a great ship like this, that sort of like to—To solve everything is to make it no longer important. No, I'm real happy. Having been disappointed by the Lusitania, having gone out to find this perfect ship and to find something that was far worse than the Titanic, far worse, just destroyed, a pile of junk in the bottom of the ocean, to then come and find that perfect ship. I mean, this is the most perfect ship of this vintage. I mean, you can certainly sink one tomorrow and it'll look prettier. But, this is the most perfect ship I've ever seen. I think the Britannic, when everyone sees how well-preserved it is, it'll lead the way, and then I will move into the next phase.

STACY KEACH: Of all the wrecks Ballard has explored, none have offered as much potential for his plan to create an undersea museum as Britannic.

BOB BALLARD: In the memory of those who perished in the sinking of the H.M.H.S Britannic, November 21, 1916, and dedicated to all those who lost their lives in the war of 1914. . .

STACY KEACH: This commemorative plaque is a point of honor for Ballard, who firmly believes that wreck sites should be left undisturbed. The only mark of his passage will be this token of respect for those who perished here. For all of our technology, the oceans of the world remain largely unexplored, their dark floors littered with forgotten relics of human history. And even those clues that are brought to light keep a jealous hold on their secrets. If Britannic someday offers us a virtual window into her past, it will be the lure of those secrets that will keep us coming back.

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This season on NOVA: no limits, no boundaries, no holding back. No limits. Journey beneath the surface, in the depths of a sunken city, where archaeologists search for one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Go to the ends of the earth to see wolves in places you never thought they'd be, as you've never seen them before. There are no boundaries for innovative spirit. Unprecedented access takes you into the emergency room where a coma case unfolds and this doctor charts a controversial new course to save lives.

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