A sailor who survived sinkings by ice-bergs and mines saw his luck run out when his final ship was torpedoed.

Archie Jewell’s cursed life has been uncovered in two letters up for auction at Sothebys.

Jewell, born in 1888, was a lookout on the Titanic on the night she hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and went down, taking 1,523 lives with her, in April 1912.

Remarkably, he was also serving on Britannic, which was being used as a hospital ship, when she was hit by a mine that killed 30 in 1916.

Jewell died aged 28, while serving on SS Donegal which was sunk by a German torpedo in 1917.

The two letters penned by Mr Jewell are to be sold at a Sotheby’s literature sale on December 17 where they are expected to fetch £20,000.