Britain's Largest Motor Ship Empire News Bulletin No. 342

A ship off the old chocks! White Star's third liner to bear the name Britannic launches from Harland & Wolff's shipyard in Belfast

The third liner to carry the name Britannic is launched from Belfast, less than two months before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, in this edition of the relatively shortlived newsreel Empire News Bulletin. Though commissioned before the economic depression that followed, the White Star liner proved remarkably suited to the more straitened times. Her massive diesel engine, one of the biggest of its time, used less fuel and could offer a slower but more affordable route across the Atlantic.

With its twin ship, the MV Georgic, the Britannic serviced the Liverpool-New York route until 1936, when changes to company ownership saw the ships squeeze into the Thames for a London-New York route. After wartime service carrying troops, the MV Britannic returned to commercial use, criss-crossing the Atlantic until it was finally replaced and scrapped at the start of the 1960s.