The Queen Mary, standing high and proud in Long Beach, California, deserves every bit of the respect that she commands. From her gallant service in World War II to her fantastic peacetime service, the last of the three-stack liners is a monument to the Cunard Line and the shipping industry of the first half of the twentieth century. The Queen Mary came about as a result of the
Cunard Line's desire to make some fierce competition for the German liners
Bremen and Europa, as well as the Italian Line's Rex.
It was not only the When the Cunard Line was planning the Queen Mary, they were approached by Vladimir Yourkevitch with a revolutionary hull design, that would make the Queen Mary stand out among all other liners. However, the designers rejected his design, considering it too radical. Cunard opted for a more traditional liner, and Yourkevitch took his design to the French Line, where his design became the Normandie. The shipyard chosen to build "hull 534" (she had not yet been named Queen Mary) was that of John Brown and Company, at Clydebank, Scotland. The first hull plates were laid on December 27, 1930. However, by December 1931, the full force of the depression reached Clydebank, and construction of the Queen Mary stopped. Most of the shipyard workers were laid off, and only a few were left, to guard the great unfinished hull. Thankfully, she was simply left as she was, and not scrapped. A similar problem hit the White Star Line with their Oceanic at Harland and Wolff. However, their order with Harland and Wolff was cancelled, as only the keel was completed, and this was recycled to make the 27,000-ton Britannic.
The name of the Queen Mary, which was known as
only Hull 534, was kept secret until the launch. Rumor had it that
the Cunard Line intended to name their ship Victoria, which fit in
with their -ia naming scheme. As legend has it, when the chairman of
Cunard asked King George V for permission to name the ship (a required
formality) after "England's most illustrious queen" (meaning
Queen Victoria), the king replied that his wife would be delighted!
The king obviously misunderstood what Her Majesty Queen Mary consented to launch the Queen Mary, and on September 19, 1934, it was done. The queen named the ship Queen Mary, smashed the bottle of champagne against her bow, and down the ways she went. The hull was even painted white for the occasion, in order to make her a better sight for photographers. After this, the now-officially-named Queen Mary was moved to her fitting out pier, destined to be one of the greatest Cunard liners of all time.
One other thing that is interesting to note about the Queen
Mary is that she carried a raised forecastle, which was unlike
anything on any other Cunard liner. Not even the Queen Elizabeth
sported this feature. It can be assumed that this interesting part
of her design In August 1936, with a run of 30.63 knots, the Queen Mary captured the Blue Riband from the Normandie. In March 1937, the Normandie won the honors back, but then in March 1937, the Queen Mary took back the Riband for good, with an average speed of 31.6 knots. She held the Blue Riband until the 1950's, until the United States beat her best time, capturing the Riband as a result. The Queen Mary was the only one of the grand superliners of the time to actually show a profit for her owners. As a result, Cunard decided to build a running mate for her, the Queen Elizabeth, which was to enter service in 1940.
Initially, Queen Mary worked the Indian Ocean,
transporting Australian troops to Africa, traveling in a zigzag fashion
on courses never repeated from voyage to voyage. Hitler was furious,
The only major mishap in the Queen Mary's career happened on October 2, 1942. While traveling at top speed off the Irish coast, she rammed her escort, the HMS Curacoa, slicing her in half as a result. Within three minutes, the Curacoa was gone, and all but 26 of her crew members died. Unfortunately, due to the possibility of undetected U-boats, all of which would be more than pleased to land a torpedo in the side of the Queen Mary, she could not stop to rescue the survivors, and instead had to continue on. The damage to her bow was temporarily patched with cement, and after the war was permanently fixed when she was fitted with a new stem during her post-war refit.
On
July 31, 1947, the Queen Mary resumed her transatlantic sailings,
for the first time with Queen Elizabeth as her running mate.
On the wall in the Queen Mary's first-class dining room, there was
a map of the North Atlantic that showed the In
the early 1960's, Cunard began to consider a three-class replacement for
the Queen Mary. This proposal was dubbed Q3.
However, with the jet liner eating into the transatlantic business by
increasing amounts every year, such a plan would be financial
suicide. As a result, the plans were substantially changed, and the
new ship In order to attempt to remedy the situation, the Queen Mary was sent on occasional cruises. The first cruise was in December 1963, traveling from Southampton to Las Palmas and back. Later, she also made holiday voyages from New York to Nassau, as well as a large-scale trip around the Mediterranean. However, she was not well-suited for cruising. She lacked central air-conditioning, as well as well as outdoor swimming pool and lido decks. By 1967, the Queen Mary showed a loss of £750,000, and thus Cunard had no choice but to retire both the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth. The Queen Mary went first, leaving New York for the last time in style in September 1967. After this, she was put up for sale. Rumors had it that she would become an Australian immigrant ship, or perhaps a public high school for New York City. She was purchased by the city of Long Beach, California for $3,500,000 (just $500,000 more than Japanese scrappers) to be used as a tourist attraction.
After a $72 million restoration which included the
replacement of all three of her funnels (the original funnels collapsed
upon removal), she opened to the public on May 10, 1971. She
received mixed reviews. While some were mortified to see souvenir
stands lining her decks, others were thankful she was being
preserved. By 1988, the operation of the Queen Mary's hotel
and other facilities However, in February 1993, RMS Foundation, headed by Joseph Prevratil, signed a lease on the Queen Mary, and that month, the Queen Mary reopened to the public. In June of that year, the Queen Mary Seaport opened, the new property-wide name given to the 55 acres alongside her. The Queen Mary has been around since the 1930's. She has served as a transatlantic liner, as a World War II troop ship, as a cruise ship, and as a hotel and convention center. Hopefully, she will be with us for a very long time, a monument to the classic liners of long ago, the last of the three-stackers.
Queen Mary Vital Statistics: Gross tonnage: 80,774 (1936), 81,235 (1937), 81,237 (1947) Length: 1,018 feet Width: 118 feet Machinery: Steam turbines geared to quadruple screw Speed: 29 knots Capacity: 776 Cabin, 784 Tourist, 579 Third (1936); 711 First, 707 Cabin, 577 Tourist (1947) Built: John Brown & Company Limited, Clydebank, Scotland, 1930-1936 Demise: N/A The Classic Liners of Long Ago © 2000-2007 Nick Works, Inc. |
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Cunard Line that was planning a new superliner,
though. The other British shipping line, the White Star Line, was
planning a three-stack, 60,000-ton liner, to be named Oceanic,
while the French Line was planning their 79,000-ton Normandie.
The
solution to get enough money to resume construction of the Queen Mary
lay in a subsidy from the British government. However, the British
government would not just give their subsidy to the Cunard Line.
They wanted some more security. As a result, in order to get the
funds to build the Queen Mary, the Cunard Line and the White Star
Line merged in 1934. The new Cunard-White Star Line got the subsidy,
and construction of the Queen Mary began on April 3, 1934.
the
chairman meant, but it was certainly not proper to correct the king on
such a delicate matter.
In
the picture at right, the Queen Mary can be seen in Southampton,
leaving for her sea trials, passing the Berengaria in the
process. By May 1936, the Queen Mary was finished, and the
royal family even went so far as to travel to Southampton to inspect the
new Queen Mary. On May 27th, Queen Mary left on her
maiden voyage to New York, which was a smashing success. The press
in New York was amazed about the proportions of the new liner, marveling
over her 151 watertight compartments, 10,000,000 rivets, 2,000 portholes
and windows, 2,500 square feet of glass, and 257,000 turbine blades.
Furthermore, her three whistles (which each weighed one ton) could be
heard for ten miles, she carried 700 clocks, and 600 telephones.
came
from the merger between Cunard and White Star, because the raised white
forecastle was one of White Star's "trademark" features on their
ships. This can be easily shown by looking at the White Star liners Majestic
and Homeric, which were both seized from Germany after World War I,
which did not sport the raised forecastle, while liners built for White
Star such as the Olympic carried this feature.
In
September 1939, the Queen Mary, along with the Normandie, Ile
de France, and the second Mauretania, was laid up in New York
awaiting the end of the political crisis in Europe. However, this
was not to be a brief stay. War soon broke out, and the Queen
Mary was painted all-gray for future war service. In March 1940,
Queen Mary briefly sat, with her funnels capped, across Pier 90
from her brand new running mate, the Queen Elizabeth, also painted
in gray after her secret maiden voyage across the Atlantic. Soon
after, the Queen Mary left for Sydney, Australia, for fitting out
as a troopship.
and
offered the Iron Cross and $250,000 to anyone who could sink a Queen.
But she survived, and had a nearly perfect record in the war, even setting
a record which still stands today for the most people on board a single
ship at one time - 16,683.
After
V-J day, the Queen Mary, while still primarily in her wartime gray,
had her funnels repainted back to Cunard red and black. It was with
this appearance that she made eleven "war bride" crossings to
the United States and Canada, before being returned to the Cunard Line for
her post-war refit. In the picture at right, she can be seen
arriving back for her post-war refit, with her funnels already repainted
in Cunard livery. The Queen Elizabeth, already refitted for
commercial service, is in the background.
Queen Mary and Queen
Elizabeth's position in the North Atlantic, so that passengers could
see when the two ships would pass each other on their routes.
Whenever the two Queens passed it was always a festive event, with
the two ships blowing their whistles in salute to each other, and often
passing as closely as possible as safety would allow (just for
effect). For fifteen years after World War II, the Queen Mary
and Queen Elizabeth were superbly profitable for Cunard.
was code-named Q4, later finally becoming the Queen
Elizabeth 2. With the airliners taking over the transatlantic
business, the Queens' passenger lists were starting to decline.
On
October 31, 1967, Queen Mary left Southampton for the last
time. Much to Cunard's annoyance, Long Beach wanted the final voyage
to be run as a cruise (Cunard wanted a simple delivery voyage). The
picture at left shows Queen Mary in Southampton, preparing for the
final cruise. After 1,001 crossings, she would never sail again.
passed
into the hands of the Walt Disney corporation. By the end of 1992,
Disney ended their lease on the property, and the Queen Mary
closed. It seemed like it might be the end of the Queen Mary.
