Large Passenger Liners - RMS Queen Elizabeth, 1938
Edited by David Barth, 7 December 2008
from page 92 of the November 2008 issue of Wired, by Cliff Kuang and
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
RMS Queen Elizabeth was an ocean liner which sailed the Atlantic Ocean for the Cunard Line (then the Cunard White
Star Line) and was contracted to carry Royal Mail. At the time of construction in the 1930s, she was known as Hull 552
by John Brown and Company in Clydebank, Scotland. Named in honour of Queen Elizabeth (who was Queen Consort at the time
of her launch in 1938), she was the largest passenger liner ever built - a record that was not exceeded for fifty-six
years. She was a slightly larger ship with an improved design over her running mate, the Queen Mary. She first entered
service as a troopship in the Second World War, and it was not until later that she served in her intended role as an
ocean liner until her retirement in 1968. Together with the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth maintained a two-ship weekly
transatlantic service from Southampton to Cherbourg to New York for over twenty years. Following a fire, she was scrapped
in Hong Kong in 1975.
At the start of World War II, the Queen Elizabeth had been launched, and was still in the process of fitting out. The
ship and the John Brown Shipyard were both targets for the German bombers so it was decided that the Queen should be
completed to a state where she would be able to go to sea as soon as possible. It was also decided that as the Queen
Elizabeth was so important to the war effort that she could not have her movements tracked by German spies operating
in the Clydebank area. Therefore, an elaborate ruse was fabricated involving her sailing to Southampton to complete her
fitting out. Another factor prompting the Queen's departure was the necessity to clear the fitting out berth at the
shipyard for the battleship Duke of YorkTemplate:WP Ships HMS instances, which was in need of its final fitting-out.
Only the berth at John Brown could accommodate the King George V-class battleship's needs.
Only two spring tides that year would see the water level high enough for the Queen Elizabeth to leave the Clydebank
shipyard and the Luftwaffe were aware of this. Thus, the new Cunard liner had to be moved as soon as possible on
Churchill's orders. A minimal crew of four hundred were consigned for the trip, and most were signed up for a short
voyage to Southampton from the Aquitania. Parts were shipped to Southampton, a booking was made to drydock the Queen
when she arrived, and the names of Brown's shipyard employees were booked at hotels in Southampton to give a false
trail of information. Captain John Townley was assigned as her first captain. Townley had previously commanded the
Aquitania on one voyage, and several of Cunard's smaller vessels before that. Townley and his hastily signed-on crew
were told by a Cunard representative before they left to pack for a voyage wherein they could be away from home for up
to six months.
On 3 March 1940, the Queen Elizabeth quietly left her moorings in the Clyde and was met en route by a King's Messenger,
presenting sealed orders to the captain. Townley discovered that he was to take the untested vessel directly to New York
(without stopping to drop off the Southampton harbour pilot who embarked on the Queen from Clydebank). Later that day at
the time when she was due to arrive at Southampton, the city was bombed by the Luftwaffe. Six days later the Queen
Elizabeth arrived in New York and the new Queen found herself moored alongside both the Queen Mary and the French Line's
Normandie. This would be the only time all three of the world's largest liners would be berthed together.
Troopship
Queen Elizabeth painted in wartime colors prior to her civilian career.Refitted for military use in Canada, Singapore
and Sydney, the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary were used as troop transports during the war. Their high speeds
allowed them to outrun hazards, foremostly German U-boats, allowing them to typically travel without a convoy. During
her war service as a troopship the Queen Elizabeth carried more than 750,000 troops and also sailed some 500,000 miles.
Her captains during this span were the aforementioned John Townley, Ernest Fall, C. Gordon Illinsworth, C.M Ford and
James Bisset.
As a troopship, the Queen Elizabeth initially carried Australian troops to operating theatres in Asia and Africa. After
1942, the vessel and her sister ship were relocated to the North Atlantic for the transportation of American troops to
Europe.
Liner
Following the end of the second world war, the Queen Elizabeth was refitted and furnished as an ocean liner at Greenock
by the John Brown Shipyard, and her sea trials finally took place - six years of war service had never allowed the liner
to undertake her formal trials. Under the command of Commodore Sir James Bisset the ship travelled to the Isle of Arun
and her trials were carried out. Onboard was the ships namesake Queen Elizabeth and her two daughters Elizabeth and
Margaret. During the trials, her majesty Queen Elizabeth took the wheel for a brief time and the two young princesses
recorded the two measured runs with stopwatches that they had been given for the occasion. Bisset was under instructions
from Sir Percy Bates that all that was required from the ship was two measured runs of no more than thirty knots and that
she was not permitted to attempt to attain a higher speed record than the Queen Mary. After her trials the Queen Elizabeth
was finally employed in Cunard White Star's two-ship weekly service to New York. Despite similar specifications to her
older sister Queen Mary, Elizabeth never held the Blue Riband as her sibling did, since Cunard White Star chairman Sir
Percy Bates requested that the two Queens not try to compete against one another.
The ship ran aground on a sandbank off Southampton on 14 April 1947, and was re-floated the following day.
Together with the Queen Mary, and in competition with the SS United States, the Queen Elizabeth dominated the
transatlantic passenger trade until their fortunes began to decline with the advent of the faster and more economical
jet airliner in the late 1950s; the Queens were becoming uneconomic to operate with rising fuel and labour costs. For a
short time, the Queen Elizabeth (now under the command of Commodore Geoffrey Trippleton Marr) attempted a new dual role
to make the aging liner more profitable; when not plying her usual transatlantic route, which she now alternated in her
sailings with the French Lines SS France, the ship cruised between New York and Nassau. For this new tropical purpose,
the ship received a major refit, with a new lido deck added to her aft section, enhanced air conditioning, and an outdoor
swimming pool. However, this did not prove successful due to her high fuel operating costs, deep draught (which had
prevented her from going into various island ports) and being too wide to use the Panama Canal.
Cunard retired both ships by 1969 and replaced them with a new, single, smaller ship, the more economical RMS Queen
Elizabeth 2 (the QE2).
Final years
In 1968, the Queen Elizabeth was sold to a group of
Philadelphia businessmen who intended to operate the ship as a hotel and tourist attraction in Port Everglades, Florida,
similar to the use of Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. Losing money and forced to close after being declared a fire
hazard, the ship was sold in 1970 to Hong Kong tycoon C.Y. Tung.
Tung, head of the Orient Overseas Line, intended to convert the vessel into a university for the World Campus Afloat
program (later reformed and renamed as Semester at Sea). Following the tradition of the Orient Overseas Line, the ship
was renamed Seawise University, as a play on Tung's initials.
During the conversion the vessel was destroyed when several fires broke out at different locations throughout the vessel
which was believed to have been caused by a deliberate case of arson. The ship capsized in shallow water in Hong Kong
Victoria Harbour on 9 January 1972. The wreckage was dismantled for scrap between 1974 and 1975, before the project
could ever be truly realized. Portions of the hull that were not salvaged were left at the bottom of the bay and later
incorporated into landfill for the new Hong Kong International Airport.
The wreck was featured in the 1974 James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun, as a covert headquarters for
MI6.
Following the demise of Queen Elizabeth, the largest passenger ship in active service became the SS France, which was
longer but had lesser tonnage than the Cunard liner.
Career (UK):
- Name: RMS Queen Elizabeth
- Operator: Cunard White Star Line
- Port of Registry: United Kingdom
- Ordered: 1936
- Builder: John Brown and Company Clydebank, Scotland
- Laid down: December 1936
- Launched: 27 September 1938
- Christened: 27 September 1938
- Maiden voyage: 3 March 1940
- Status: Scrapped in Hong Kong in 1974
- General characteristics
- Tonnage: 83,673 gross tons
- Displacement: 83,000+ tonnes
- Length: 1,031 ft (314 m)
- Beam: 118 ft (36 m)
- Height: 233 ft (71 m)
- Draft: 38 ft (12 m)
- Speed: 28.5-knot (52.8 km/h)
- Capacity: 2,283 passengers
- Crew: 1,000+ crew
See also:
RMS Mauretania - 1906.
RMS Titanic - 1911.
Europa - 1928.
Bremen - 1929.
SS Normandie - 1932.
RMS Queen Mary - 1934.
RMS Queen Elizabeth - 1938.
SS America - 1940.
RMS Oceanic - 1951.
SS United States - 1952.
SS France - 1960.
RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 - 1967.
RMS Queen Mary 2 - 2003.
MS Oasis of the Seas - 2009.