Most people wouldn’t step back on a ship after surviving one sinking. Violet Jessop survived three.
She was just 23 when she began working as a stewardess for the White Star Line. Her first posting was on the RMS Olympic the largest passenger ship in the world at the time. In 1911, Olympic collided with a British warship. The hull was badly damaged, but the ship stayed afloat. Violet walked away shaken but unharmed.
A year later, she was transferred to the brand new RMS Titanic. We all know what happened next. On April 14, 1912, the ship struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Violet was ordered into a lifeboat, where she spent hours in freezing darkness before being rescued.
You’d think that would be enough sea disasters for one lifetime. Not for Violet.
During World War I, she served as a nurse aboard the Britannic, Titanic’s younger sister, converted into a hospital ship. In 1916, while in the Aegean Sea, Britannic struck a mine and began to sink fast. Violet jumped into the water but was pulled under by the ship’s propellers. She survived only because the force threw her clear, though she hit her head on the way up.
Three near-deaths. Three giant ships. And Violet kept sailing for decades afterward. She retired at 61, quietly closing the book on one of the most extraordinary careers at sea.