RMS QUEEN MARY BLUE RIBAND TRANS ATLANTIC BRITISH OCEAN LINER WW2 TROOPSHIP

IMAGES OF AMERICA SOFTBOUND BOOK in ENGLISH by SUZANNE TARBELL COOPER, FRANK COOPER, ATHENE MIHALAKIS KOVACIC, DON LYNCH, JOHN THOMAS and THE QUEEN MARY ARCHIVES

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Additional Information from Internet Encyclopedia

RMS Queen Mary is a retired British ocean liner that sailed primarily on the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line and was built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland. Queen Mary, along with RMS Queen Elizabeth,[4] was built as part of Cunard's planned two-ship weekly express service between Southampton, Cherbourg and New York. The two ships were a British response to the express superliners built by German, Italian and French companies in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage on 27 May 1936 and won the Blue Riband that August; she lost the title to SS Normandie in 1937 and recaptured it in 1938, holding it until 1952, when it was taken by the new SS United States. With the outbreak of World War II, she was converted into a troopship and ferried Allied soldiers during the conflict. On one voyage in 1943, she carried over 16,600 people, the still-standing record for the most people on a vessel.

Following the war, Queen Mary was refitted for passenger service and along with Queen Elizabeth commenced the two-ship transatlantic passenger service for which the two ships were initially built. The two ships dominated the transatlantic passenger transportation market until the dawn of the jet age in the late 1950s. By the mid-1960s, Queen Mary was ageing and was operating at a loss.

After several years of decreased profits for Cunard Line, Queen Mary was officially retired from service in 1967. She left Southampton for the last time on 31 October 1967 and sailed to the port of Long Beach, California, United States, where she was permanently moored. The City of Long Beach bought the ship to serve as a tourist attraction featuring restaurants, a museum and a hotel. The city contracted out management of the ship to various third-party firms over the years. It took back operational control in 2021.

With Weimar Germany launching Bremen and Europa into service, Britain did not want to be left behind in the shipbuilding race. White Star Line began construction on their 80,000-ton Oceanic in 1928, while Cunard planned a 75,000-ton unnamed ship of their own.

Construction on the ship, then known only as "Hull Number 534", began in December 1930 on the River Clyde by the John Brown & Company shipyard at Clydebank in Scotland. Work was halted in December 1931 due to the Great Depression and Cunard applied to the British Government for a loan to complete 534. The loan was granted, with enough money to complete the unfinished ship, and also to build a running mate, with the intention to provide a two ship weekly service to New York.

One condition of the loan was that Cunard merge with the White Star Line,[8] another struggling British shipping company, which was Cunard's chief British rival at the time and which had already been forced by the depression to cancel construction of its Oceanic. Both lines agreed and the merger was completed on 10 May 1934. Work on Queen Mary resumed immediately and she was launched on 26 September 1934. Completion ultimately took 3+1⁄2 years and cost 3.5 million pounds sterling,[7] then equal to $17.5 million (equivalent to $310 million in 2023). Much of the ship's interior was designed and constructed by the Bromsgrove Guild.[9] Prior to the ship's launch, the River Clyde had to be specifically deepened to cope with her size, this being undertaken by the engineer D. Alan Stevenson.

The ship was named after Mary of Teck, consort of King George V. Until her launch, the name was kept a closely guarded secret. Legend has it that Cunard intended to name the ship Victoria, in keeping with company tradition of giving its ships names ending in "ia", but when company representatives asked the King's permission to name the ocean liner after Britain's "greatest Queen", he said his wife, Mary of Teck, would be delighted.[11] And so, the legend goes, the delegation had, of course, no other choice but to report that No. 534 would be called Queen Mary.

This story has always been denied by company officials, and traditionally the names of royal family members have only been used for capital ships of the Royal Navy. This anecdote has been widely contested ever since Frank Braynard published it in his 1947 book, Lives of the Liners. Some support for the story was provided by Washington Post editor Felix Morley, who sailed as a guest of the Cunard Line on Queen Mary's 1936 maiden voyage. In his 1979 autobiography, For the Record, Morley wrote that he was placed at a table with Sir Percy Bates, chairman of the Cunard Line. Bates told him the story of the naming of the ship "on condition you won't print it during my lifetime." The story was finally proven in 1988 when Braynard attended the same dinner party as Eleanor Sparkes, daughter of Sir Ashley Sparkes, who'd been with Bates during the conversation with George V. She confirmed the "favourite ship story" to him, telling the exact anecdote that Braynard had published in his book.

Despite this, Cunard still denies the name change. It is also possible the name Queen Mary was decided upon as a compromise between Cunard and the White Star Line, as both lines had naming traditions. White Star used names ending in "ic", while Cunard used names ending in "ia".

The name had already been given to the Clyde turbine steamer TS Queen Mary, so Cunard made an arrangement with its owners and this older ship was renamed Queen Mary II.

Queen Mary was fitted with 24 Yarrow boilers in four boiler rooms and four Parsons turbines in two engine rooms. The boilers delivered 400 pounds per square inch (28 bar) steam at 700 °F (371 °C) which provided a maximum of 212,000 shp (158,000 kW) to four propellers, each turning at 200 RPM.

Pre-Second World War

In 1934 the new liner was launched by Her Majesty Queen Mary as RMS Queen Mary. On her way down the slipway, Queen Mary was slowed by eighteen drag chains, which checked the liner's progress into the River Clyde, a portion of which had been widened to accommodate the launch.

When she sailed on her maiden voyage from Southampton on 27 May 1936, she was commanded by Sir Edgar Britten, who had been the master designate for Cunard White Star whilst the ship was under construction at the John Brown shipyard. Queen Mary measured 80,774 gross register tons (GRT), making her the world's largest passenger ship.[18] Her rival Normandie, only measured 79,280 GRT. Queen Mary sailed at high speed for most of her maiden voyage to New York, until heavy fog forced a reduction of speed on the final day of the crossing, arriving in New York Harbor on 1 June 1936.

Queen Mary's design was criticised for being too traditional, especially when Normandie's hull was revolutionary with a clipper-shaped, streamlined bow. Except for her cruiser stern, she seemed to be an enlarged version of her Cunard predecessors from the pre-First World War era. Her interior design, while mostly Art Deco, seemed restrained and conservative when compared to the ultramodern French liner. Nonetheless Queen Mary proved to be the more popular vessel than her rival, in terms of passengers carried.

In August 1936, Queen Mary captured the Blue Riband from Normandie, with average speeds of 30.14 knots (55.82 km/h; 34.68 mph) westbound and 30.63 knots (56.73 km/h; 35.25 mph) eastbound. That same month, Normandie returned to service after a refit that increased her size to 83,243 GRT, reclaiming the title of world's largest passenger ship.[20] In 1937, Normandie received a new set of propellers and reclaimed the Blue Riband. However, in 1938, under the command of Robert B. Irving, Queen Mary took back the Blue Riband in both directions,[21] with average speeds of 30.99 knots (57.39 km/h; 35.66 mph) westbound and 31.69 knots (58.69 km/h; 36.47 mph) eastbound, records which stood until lost to United States in 1952.

Interior

Among facilities available on board Queen Mary, the liner featured two indoor swimming pools, beauty salons, libraries and children's nurseries for all three classes, a music studio and lecture hall, telephone connectivity to anywhere in the world, outdoor paddle tennis courts and dog kennels. The largest room on board was the cabin class (first class) main dining room (grand salon), spanning three stories in height and anchored by wide columns. The ship had many air-conditioned public rooms on board. The cabin-class swimming pool facility spanned over two decks in height. This was the first ocean liner to be equipped with her own Jewish prayer room – part of a policy to show that British shipping lines avoided the antisemitism evident in Nazi Germany.

The cabin-class main dining room featured a large map of the transatlantic crossing, with twin tracks symbolising the winter/spring route (further south to avoid icebergs) and the summer/autumn route. During each crossing, a small motorised model of Queen Mary would travel along the mural to indicate the vessel's progress en route.

As an alternative to the main dining room, Queen Mary featured a separate cabin-class Verandah Grill on the Sun Deck at the upper aft of the ship. The Verandah Grill was an exclusive à la carte restaurant with a capacity of approximately eighty passengers and was converted to the Starlight Club at night. Also on board was the Observation Bar, an Art Deco-styled lounge with wide ocean views. Arthur J. Davis of Messrs, Mewes and Davis, and Benjamin Wistar Morris designed the Queen Mary's interior spaces, including the staircases, foyers, and entrances, which were constructed by H.H. Martyn & Co.

Woods from different regions of the British Empire were used in her public rooms and staterooms. Accommodation ranged from fully equipped, luxurious cabin (first) class staterooms to modest and cramped third-class cabins. Artists commissioned by Cunard in 1933 for works of art in the interior include Edward Wadsworth and A. Duncan Carse.

In late August 1939, Queen Mary was on a return run from New York to Southampton. The international situation led to her being escorted by the battlecruiser HMS Hood. She arrived safely and set out again for New York on 1 September. By the time she arrived, war had been declared and she was ordered to remain in port alongside Normandie until further notice.

In March 1940, Queen Mary and Normandie were joined in New York by Queen Mary's new running mate Queen Elizabeth, fresh from her secret voyage from Clydebank. The three largest liners in the world sat idle for some time until the Allied commanders decided that all three ships could be used as troopships. Normandie was destroyed by fire during her troopship conversion. Queen Mary left New York for Sydney, Australia in March 1940, where she, along with several other liners, was converted into a troopship to carry Australian and New Zealand soldiers to the United Kingdom.

In the conversion, the ship's hull, superstructure, and funnels were painted navy grey. As a result of her new colour, and in combination with her great speed, she became known as the "Grey Ghost". To protect against magnetic mines, a degaussing coil was fitted around the outside of the hull. Inside, stateroom furniture and decoration were removed and replaced with triple-tiered (fixed) wooden bunks, which were later replaced by "standee" (fold-up) bunks.

A total of 6 miles (10 km) of carpet, 220 cases of china, crystal and silver services, tapestries, and paintings were removed and stored in warehouses for the duration of the war. The woodwork in the staterooms, the cabin-class dining room, and other public areas were covered with leather. Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were the largest and fastest troopships involved in the war, often carrying as many as 15,000 men in a single voyage, and often travelling out of convoy and without escort. Indeed, only a handful of ships, such as the Polish destroyer ORP Blyskawica, could even provide an escort. The Queens high speed and zigzag courses made it virtually impossible for U-boats to catch them, although one attempted to attack the ship. On 25 May 1944, U-853 spotted Queen Mary and submerged to attack, but the ship outran the U-boat before it could do so.[28] Because of their importance to the war effort, Adolf Hitler offered a bounty of 1 million Reichsmarks and Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross, Germany's highest military honor, to any U-boat captain that sank either ship.

The Queen Mary was not so lucky throughout the war. On 2 October 1942, she accidentally sank one of her escort ships, slicing through the light cruiser HMS Curacoa off the Irish coast with a loss of 338 lives. Queen Mary was carrying thousands of Americans of the 29th Infantry Division[30] to join the Allied forces in Europe.[31] Due to the risk of U-boat attacks, Queen Mary was under orders not to stop under any circumstances and steamed onward with a fractured stem. Some sources claim that hours later, the convoy's lead escort, consisting of Bramham and one other ship,[32] returned to rescue 99 survivors of Curacoa's crew of 437, including her captain John W. Boutwood.[33][34][35] This claim is contradicted by the liner's then Staff Captain Harry Grattidge, who recorded that Queen Mary's Captain, Gordon Illingsworth, immediately ordered the accompanying destroyers to look for survivors within moments of Curacoa's sinking.

Later that year, from 8–14 December 1942, Queen Mary carried 10,389 soldiers and 950 crew (total 11,339).[38] During this trip, on 11 December, while 700 miles (1,100 km) from Scotland during a gale, she was suddenly broadsided on her starboard side by a rogue wave that might have reached a height of 28 metres (92 ft).[39] An account of this crossing can be found in Carter's book. As quoted in the book, Carter's father, Dr. Norval Carter, part of the 110th Station Hospital on board at the time, wrote in a letter that at one point Queen Mary "damned near capsized... One moment the top deck was at its usual height and then, swoom! Down, over, and forward she would pitch." It was calculated later that the ship rolled 52 degrees, and would have capsized had she rolled another three degrees.

From 25 to 30 July 1943, Queen Mary carried 15,740 soldiers and 943 crew (total 16,683),[42] a standing record for the most passengers ever transported on one vessel. This was only possible in summer as passengers had to sleep on deck.

During the war, Queen Mary carried British Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic three times for meetings with fellow Allied forces officials. He was listed on the passenger manifests as "Colonel Warden".[45] On one crossing in 1943, Churchill and his staff planned the Normandy Invasion and he signed the D-Day Declaration aboard.[46] Churchill later stated that the Queens, "challenged the fury of Hitlerism in the battle of the Atlantic. Without their aid, the day of final victory must unquestionably have been postponed.” By the war's end, Queen Mary had carried over 800,000 troops and traveled over 600,000 miles across the world's oceans.