There were a total of 1,066 people on board, with 1,036 survivors taken from the water and lifeboats, roughly an hour later, at 9:07 AM, the ship sank. In spite of Britannic being the biggest ship lost during the First World War, her sinking was not as tragic in terms of loss of human life as were the sinking of RMS Titanic and Cunard's RMS Lusitania.