The Queen Mary

Title

The Queen Mary

Artist

Robert Hebert

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

In 1934 the new liner was launched by 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 Clyde, a portion of which had been widened to accommodate the launch.[12]

When she sailed on her maiden voyage from Southampton on 27 May 1936, she was commanded by Sir Edgar T. 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).[13] Her rival Normandie, which originally grossed 79,280 tonnes, had been modified the preceding winter to increase her size to 83,243 GRT (an enclosed tourist lounge was built on the aft boat deck on the area where the game court was), and therefore kept the title of the world's largest ocean liner.[14] Queen Mary sailed at high speeds 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.


A Queen Mary baggage tag
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. Queen Mary proved to be the more popular vessel than her larger rival, in terms of passengers carried.[8][15]


"It's Men That Count", a late 1930s promotional poster for the Cunard Line
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. Normandie was refitted with a new set of propellers in 1937 and reclaimed the honour, but in 1938 Queen Mary took back the Blue Riband in both directions 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[edit]
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 onboard was the cabin class (first class) main dining room (grand salon), spanning three stories in height and anchored by wide columns. 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 racism evident at that time in Nazi Germany.[16]

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 motorised model of Queen Mary would 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.

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.[17]

Queen Mary Art Deco Interiors

Mural in the main dining room, or "Grand Salon" on which a crystal model tracked the ship's progress

First class dining room, now known as the "Grand Salon"

Observation Bar lounge. The windows were once part of the enclosed Promenade Deck turnaround; the lounge was extended forward after 1967.
Second World War[edit]

Arriving in New York Harbor, 20 June 1945, with thousands of US soldiers – there is a prominent degaussing coil running around the outer hull.
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, the Second World War had started 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 sister ship Queen Elizabeth, fresh from her secret dash 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, where she, along with several other liners, was converted into a troopship to carry Australian and New Zealand soldiers to the United Kingdom.


Queen Mary's forward superstructure, shown here in Long Beach. When she came to Long Beach, the Sun Deck windows were enlarged and an anti-aircraft gun was placed on display astride the foremast to represent the Second World War days of the liner.
In the Second World War 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 wooden bunks, which were later replaced by standee bunks.

Six miles of carpet, 220 cases of china, crystal and silver service, 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 was 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. Their high speed made it difficult for U boats to catch them.

On 2 October 1942, Queen Mary accidentally sank one of her escort ships, slicing through the light cruiser HMS Curacoa off the Irish coast with a loss of 239 lives. Queen Mary was carrying thousands of Americans of the 29th Infantry Division[18] to join the Allied forces in Europe.[19] 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[clarification needed] returned to rescue 99 survivors of Curacoa's crew of 338, including her captain John W. Boutwood.[20][21][22] This claim is contradicted by the liner's then Staff Captain (and later Cunard Commodore) Harry Grattidge, who records that Queen Mary's Captain immediately ordered the accompanying destroyers to look for survivors within moments of the Curacoa's sinking.[23]

In December 1942, Queen Mary carried 16,082 American soldiers from New York to Great Britain,[24] a standing record for the most passengers ever transported on one vessel.[25] During this trip, while 700 miles (1,100 km) from Scotland during a gale, she was suddenly hit broadside by a rogue wave that may have reached a height of 28 metres (92 ft). An account of this crossing can be found in Carter's book.[24][26] 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 3 degrees.[24] The incident inspired Paul Gallico to write his novel, The Poseidon Adventure (1969) and carry the incident to a fictional extreme. This was adapted as a 1972 film by the same name, in which the SS Poseidon is turned upside-down, and the trapped passengers try to escape. Naturally parts of the film were shot in the actual Queen Mary, conveniently docked in Long Beach.

During the war Queen Mary carried British Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic for meetings with fellow Allied forces officials on several occasions. He was listed on the passenger manifest as "Colonel Warden".[27] The ship was also used to return American troops from Europe after the war.

Post Second World War[edit]

Queen Mary on the North Sea, 1959

Queen Mary at New York, c. 1961
After delivering a load of war brides to Canada, Queen Mary made her fastest ever crossing, returning to Southampton in only three days, 22 hours and 42 minutes at an average speed of just under 32 knots (59 km/h).[28] From September 1946 to July 1947, Queen Mary was refitted for passenger service, adding air conditioning and upgrading her berth configuration to 711 first class (formerly called cabin class), 707 cabin class (formerly tourist class) and 577 tourist class (formerly third class) passengers.[29] Following refit, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth dominated the transatlantic passenger trade as Cunard White Star's two-ship weekly express service through the latter half of the 1940s and well into the 1950s. They proved highly profitable for Cunard (as the company was renamed in 1947).

On 1 January 1949, Queen Mary ran aground off Cherbourg, France. She was refloated the next day[30] and returned to service.

In 1958 the first transatlantic flight by a jet began a completely new era of competition for the Cunard Queens. On some voyages, winters especially, Queen Mary sailed into harbour with more crew than passengers, though both she and Queen Elizabeth still averaged over 1,000 passengers per crossing into the middle 1960s.[31] By 1965, the entire Cunard fleet was operating at a loss.

Hoping to continue financing the Queen Elizabeth 2 which was under construction at Brown's shipyard - Cunard mortgaged the majority of the fleet. Due to a combination of age, lack of public interest, inefficiency in a new market and the damaging after effects of the national seamen's strike, Cunard announced that both Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth would be retired from service and sold off. Many offers were submitted, and the bid of $3.45m/£1.2m from Long Beach, California beat the Japanese scrap merchants.[32] Queen Mary was featured in the 1966 action-adventure film Assault on a Queen starring Frank Sinatra.

Queen Mary was retired from service in 1967.[33] On 27 September she completed her 1,000th and last crossing of the North Atlantic, having carried 2,112,000 passengers over 3,792,227 miles (6,102,998 km). Under the command of Captain John Treasure Jones, who had been her captain since 1965, she sailed from Southampton for the last time on 31 October with 1,093 passengers and 806 crew. After an epic voyage around Cape Horn, she arrived in Long Beach on 9 December.[32] Queen Elizabeth was withdrawn in 1968 and Queen Elizabeth 2 took over the transatlantic route in 1969.

Long Beach[edit]

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August 14th, 2017

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