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The Magnificent Queens. Contributor: Alan Chanter. One of the great stories of the war that had to remain untold until the end of the war in Europe is that of the ocean journeys of two of the world's largest liners, the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth. When the war clouds broke over Europe the luxury ocean liner RMS Queen Mary was outward ...
- Why The RMS Queen Mary Was An Instant Legend
- One Last Peacetime Voyage
- Converted For Wartime Use
- The RMS Queen Mary‘s Maiden Voyage as A Troopship
- Defending Against Sea Mines
- The Route from Sydney to Bombay
- The Queen Mary Under American Control
- U-boats on The Hunt
- A GI Shuttle in The European Theater
- A Good Night’S Sleep on The Transatlantic Voyage
RMS Queen Marywas Britain’s entry in the fierce transatlantic passenger trade. Commercial aviation was in its infancy in the 1920s and 1930s, leaving passenger liners the only viable way to get to Europe. Before World War I, most shipping companies made their money in steerage, transporting thousands of poor immigrants to new and hopefully better l...
The ship’s last peacetime voyage in August 1939 was anything but routine. Queen Mary’s captain was ordered to sail about 100 miles south of her normal route as a precaution against lurking German submarines. On September 1, the German Army invaded Poland, and shortly before midnight on September 2, just a few hours after Britain’s ultimatum was del...
In March 1940, the Queen Elizabeth joined her sister ship, Queen Mary, in New York. The newer ship was unfinished and less vulnerable in the United States. Both vessels would perform a vital service in carrying thousands of troops to far-flung battlefronts around the world. The Queen Mary stayed in New York for the next seven months, idle and seemi...
On May 4, 1940, Queen Mary left Sydney with 5,000 Aussie troops aboard. The great liner joined other “drafted” passenger ships similarly loaded with equipment and men, forming a huge convoy protected by the Royal Australian Navy. This first maiden troopship voyage was completed successfully, but the Queen’sarrival back in Britain coincided with the...
Queen Mary’s primary mission would be to ferry troops to battlefronts where they were most needed, but she needed additional modifications. The ship was dispatched to Singapore, Britain’s great eastern bastion, where the transformations could take place. Japan, already embroiled in a major land war in China, soon occupied French Indochina. Tokyo’s ...
After the extensive refit, Sydney became Queen Mary’s main base throughout 1941. In this period the liner shuttled troops from Australia to the Middle East, although she did not make the complete journey to the battlefronts. The ship usually stopped at Bombay, where the troops would transfer to smaller vessels that took them to Egypt. The open ocea...
The December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor widened the war and brought the United States into the conflict on the Allied side. Churchill hurried across the Atlantic to confer with his new partners, although in truth the British and Americans had been cooperating with each other long before the formal declarations of war. President Frankl...
When the job was complete, the Queen Mary embarked 8,398 American soldiers, most of them artillerymen or ordnance troops of one kind of another. Her destination was Sydney via Trinidad, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, and Freemantle. The liner left Boston on February 18, 1942, under bright blue skies that seemed to augur a safe passage. In fact, this tr...
By 1943, planning for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of occupied France, was well underway. Earlier refitted to accommodate 15,000 men, the Queen Marymade a significant contribution to the Allied build-up that preceded the invasion. In essence, the ship could carry an entire division across the ocean in less than six days. Now permanently ...
It was quickly realized that new rules and new procedures had to be adopted for the 15,000-man voyages, or all would dissolve into chaos. The ship was divided into three vertical sections—Red, White, and Blue—and every soldier coming aboard was given a colored button corresponding to the section where his unit was assigned. Visiting other sections ...
May 1, 2022 · With the outbreak of World War II, the Queen Mary abandoned her luxurious and gentlemanly pursuit of seafaring records to take on a task of much greater importance. Repainted in navy gray – leading her to be nicknamed the “Grey Ghost” – the Queen Mary became a transport ship carrying troops from Australia and New Zealand to Britain. On ...
Queen Mary made her last peacetime voyage from Southampton on 30 August 1939. On arrival in New York, the ship was berthed in the relative safety of the US port, while World War II commenced in Europe. Queen Mary remained in New York until early 1940, when the British Admiralty decided the role the ship would play in the coming months and years ...
One of the worst accidents occurred on October 2, 1942, when a British antiaircraft cruiser and the famous British liner Queen Mary collided. The mishap cost 236 British seamen their lives; only 99 were rescued. During World War II many of the great Atlantic liners, such as the luxurious, 1,020-foot-long Queen Mary (which had a comfortable ...
Oct 2, 2020 · On 2 October 1942 an eastbound Queen Mary, carrying nearly 20,000 American troops of the 29th Infantry Division to join the Allied forces in Europe, collided with and sank the British light cruiser Curacoa. Both ships were following evasive, anti-U-boat zigzagging courses, approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Ireland, when Queen Mary ...
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Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage on 27 May 1936 and won the Blue Riband that August; [5] she lost the title to SS Normandie in 1937 and recaptured it in 1938, holding it until 1952, when the new SS United States claimed it. With the outbreak of World War II, she was converted into a troopship and ferried Allied soldiers during the ...
