Overview

• The Greek Culture Ministry confirmed the first documented recoveries from the Britannic wreck, including a bell, a port-side navigation lamp, binoculars, Turkish bath tiles, silver-plated trays, and a porcelain sink.
• An 11-member technical team conducted a week-long operation in May using closed-circuit rebreathers at a depth of about 120 meters off the island of Kea.
• The effort was coordinated by historian Simon Mills of the Britannic Foundation under Greek cultural authorities’ oversight.
• Divers faced strong currents and poor visibility, which limited retrieval to a subset of the items originally targeted.
• Britannic, converted to a World War I hospital ship, sank in 1916 after hitting a mine; the wreck was found by Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1975 and is reachable only by technical divers.