The following year, 1912, Mr. Priest was on the Olympic's sister ship, the newly launched Titanic on her maiden run into history. A massive layoff among stokers caused many of his comrades to lose their jobs, but Priest was "lucky" enough to get a position deep in the bowels of the ill-fated ship.
He was one of the few lucky crew members to survive.
But, this wasn't the last time he nearly died on a shipwreck.
His World War I service saw him aboard the ocean liner turned armed merchant ship RMS Alcantara which was sunk by the German merchant raider Grief. He survived that as well. He later served aboard the sister ship of the Titanic and Olympic, the Britannica which had been turned into a hospital ship. She hit a mine and sank in November 1916.
The following year, the luckiest unlucky sailor in history was serving aboard the SS Donegal, a converted ferry that had become an ambulance ship. She was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in the English Channel.
He survived that one too, but that was his last ship. After this one, he lived out his life on dry land, saying that "no one wished to sail with him after these disasters." (I don't blame them.) He also had the title "The Unsinkable Stoker."
I Would Figure. --Cooter
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