The Life of RMS Queen Mary #ship #shiplife #queenmary #ww2 #history #oceanliner #passengership

Launched: 26 September 1934 Maiden Voyage: 27 May 1936 Decommissioned: 9 December 1967 Fate: Laid up as a floating hotel and museum ship, Long Beach. Construction on the ship began in December 1930 on the River Clyde by the John Brown & Company shipyard at Clydebank in Scotland. Work halted in December 1931 due to the Great Depression & Cunard applied to the British Government for a loan to complete construction. The Government granted the loan on the condition of the loan was that Cunard merge its operations with the White Star Line. On 26 September 1934, Her Majesty Queen Mary named & launched the RMS Queen Mary. On 27 May 1936 Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage from Southampton. She 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. In August 1936, Queen Mary captured the Blue Riband from Normandie & kept it until lost to SS United States in 1952. 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 & set out again for New York on 1 September. By the time she arrived, war had been declared & 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 approximately two weeks when Queen Mary left for Sydney, Australia. Once there she was converted into a troopship to carry Australian & 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". Queen Mary & Queen Elizabeth were the largest & fastest troopships involved in the war, often carrying as many as 15,000 men in a single voyage & often travelling out of convoy & without escort. 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 338 lives. 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). It was calculated later that the ship rolled 52 degrees & would have capsized had she rolled another three degrees. By the war's end, Queen Mary had carried over 800,000 troops and travelled over 600,000 miles across the world's oceans. After delivering war brides to Canada Queen Mary was refitted for passenger service & dominated the transatlantic passenger trade. In 1952, Queen Mary lost the Blue Riband she held for 14 years to the SS United States during her maiden voyage. In 1958, the first commercial transatlantic flights by jet began a completely new era of competition for passenger liners. With a London–New York travel time reduced to just 7–8 hours, demand for multi-day ocean crossing dropped precipitously. By 1965, the entire Cunard fleet was operating at a loss. Hoping to continue financing 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 & the damaging after-effects of the national seamen's strike, Cunard announced that both Queens would be retired from service & sold off. Many offers for Queen Mary were submitted & the final bid was from Long Beach, California surpassed the Japanese scrap merchants. Queen Mary was retired from service in 1967. On 27 September 1967, Queen Marycompleted her 1,001st & last crossing of the North Atlantic, she sailed from Southampton for the last time on 31 October with 1,093 passengers and 806 crew. After a voyage around Cape Horn, she arrived in Long Beach on 9 December. The Queen Elizabeth 2 took over the transatlantic route in 1969. On 8 May 1971, Queen Mary opened her doors to tourists. In 1972 during the production of “The Poseidon Adventure” parts of the movie were filmed aboard the Queen Mary. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Paul Gallico who had been inspired to write his novel after a vacation aboard the ship in 1937 in which it was rocked by high waves. On 23 February 2006, RMS Queen Mary 2 saluted her predecessor as she made a port of call in Los Angeles Harbor, while on a cruise from South Africa to Mexico.

#RMS Queen Mary#The Poseidon Adventure#Ocean liner#Ship