Samantha Parkington's journey on the last voyage of the Lusitania was very eventful indeed. With the help of her new friend Rebecca Rubin, Samantha, her grandmother Mary Edwards and her step-grandfather Admiral Archibald Beemis survived one of the greatest maritime disasters since the sinking of the Titanic.

But now, a whole year had passed and Samantha and Rebecca were safely in England, training to be nurses while Grandmary and Admiral Beemis were providing money, clothing and food for those who were shipwrecked, widowed or orphaned by the Great War.

With so many causalities on both sides in 1916, most of the major shipping companies had to use hospital ships to save the wounded. Many ocean liners had to be converted into hospital ships due to their size, among them, the White Star Line's latest wonder ship, Britannic.

Britannic had an 882-foot hull, with thousands of plates held together by 3 million rivets and a 92-foot beam. She was driven by two colossal reciprocating engines and a single turbine, which could take her up to 22 knots. Her displacement weight was 53,200 tons. At 175 feet, she spanned 9 decks with watertight bulkheads that went five decks higher than her sisters Titanic and Olympic. She may have been originally named Gigantic before Titanic's sinking rechristened her with something suitably patriotic and honorable. White Star was now sensitive to bad publicity and increasing nationalism and Britannic was also the name of an earlier liner which sailed the seas from 1874 to 1903, a proud run in the company's history.

After a year of training and five months of experience despite the younger's age and non-British nationalities, Samantha and Rebecca would have never suspected that they would be serving aboard Britannic when she would be leaving Southampton, England for her sixth voyage on November 12, 1916.