RMS Queen Elizabeth
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 Depiction of the RMS Queen Elizabeth. |
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| 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 |
| Identification: | Radio Callsign GBSS |
| 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 |
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 by John Brown and Company in Clydebank, Scotland, she was known as Hull 552. Named in honour of Queen Elizabeth (who was Queen Consort at the time of her launch in 1938),[1] 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.
On the day the RMS Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage Cunard's chairman Sir Percy Bates informed his ship architects that it was time to start designing the Mary's sister ship which unlike the Queen Mary whose name was kept secret this new vessel was to be called the Queen Elizabeth.
The new ship was to be an updated design from the Mary as she would have twelve boilers instead of the older ships twenty four, which also meant that the designers could discard one funnel which would increase deck and passenger space. The two funnels would also be braced internally unlike the Mary to give her a cleaner looking appearance, the forward well deck was also omitted and a sharper raked bow was added so a third bow anchor point could be utilised. The ship also had the benefits of a more refined hull shape and one extra deck.
On the it was announced that on 23rd August 1939 the King and Queen were to visit the ship and tour the engine room and April 24th 1940 was to be the proposed date of her maiden voyage. Due to the German occupation of Poland and the declaration of war against Germany and her allies these two dates were postponed.
The Queen Elizabeth sat at the fitting out dock at the shipyard in her Cunard colours until the 2nd of November 1939 when the Ministry of Shipping issued special licences to bring the ship to a state that she would be able to go to sea. On Friday December 29th her engines were tested for the first time when they were run from 0900 to 1600 with the propellers disconnected to monitor her oil and steam temperatures and pressures. Two months later Cunard received a letter from Winston Churchill who was First Lord of the Admiralty and that he wanted the ship to leave Clydeside as soon as possible and "to keep away from the British Isles as long as the order was in force".
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[edit] Maiden voyage
At the start of World War II, 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 HMS Duke of York, 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.
One major factor that limited the Queen Elizabeth secret departure date was that there was only two spring tides that year would see the water level high enough for the Queen Elizabeth to leave the Clydebank shipyard and German intelligence were aware of this fact. A minimal crew of four hundred were assigned for the trip, most were signed up for a short voyage to Southampton from the Aquitania. Parts were shipped to Southampton, and preparations were made to drydock the new Queen when she arrived. The names of Brown's shipyard employees were booked to local hotels in Southampton to give a false trail of information and Captain John Townley was appointed 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 of four hundred Cunard personnel were told by a Cunard representative before they left to pack for a voyage where they could be away from home for up to six months.
By the beginning of March 1940, Queen Elizabeth was ready for her secret voyage. Her Cunard colours were painted over with battleship grey, and on the morning of the 3rd March she quietly left her moorings in the Clyde. Her lifeboats were taken off board and towed to a deeper point on the river known as "Tail of the Bank". The reason for this was to make her lighter. On May 27, 1936, the Queen Mary was floated down the river and a large gust of wind had caught her bows, and caused her to run aground. The Elizabeth's lifeboats were taken off so that she would be lighter and easier for tugboats to handle if the same thing happened to her. It did not; however, the inrushing tide caught her bows and the tugboats fought for five hours to nurse her downriver, where she took her lifeboats back on board. There, she was met by the King's Messenger who presented sealed orders directly to the captain. Townley discovered that he was to take the untested vessel directly to New York without stopping and without dropping off the Southampton harbour pilot who had embarked on the Queen from Clydebank and maintain strict radio silence. Later that day at the time when she was due to arrive at Southampton, the city was bombed by the Luftwaffe. After a crossing taking six days, the Queen Elizabeth had zigzagged her way across the Atlantic at an average speed of 26 knots avoiding Germany's U-boats, where she arrived safely at 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.
Captain Townley received two telegrams on his arrival in New York, one from his wife congratulating him and the other was from the ships namesake - Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who thanked him for safe delivery the ship that was named for her. The ship was then moored for the first time along side the Queen Mary and then she was then secured so that no one could board her without prior permission. This included port officials. Cunard later issued a statement that it had been decided that due to the global circumstances, it was best that the new Queen was moved to a neutral location and that during the voyage the ship had carried no passengers or cargo.
[edit] Troopship
The Queen Elizabeth left the port of New York on November 13th for Singapore for her troopship conversion, when she arrived at her destination and after two stops to refuel and replenish her stores in Trinidad and Cape Town she arrived in Singapore Naval Docks where she was fitted with anti aircraft guns and her hull was repainted black but her superstructure remained grey.
As a troopship, the Queen Elizabeth left Singapore on February 11th to start her trooping duties which initially she carried Australian troops to operating theatres in Asia and Africa.[2] After 1942, the two Queens were relocated to the North Atlantic for the transportation of American troops to Europe.[2]
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 period were the aforementioned John Townley, Ernest Fall, Cyril Gordon Illinsworth, C.M. Ford, and James Bisset.
[edit] Liner
Following the end of the second world war, the Queen Elizabeth was refitted and furnished as an ocean liner at the Firth of Clyde Drydock in Greenock by the John Brown Shipyard, and her sea trials finally took place due to six years of war service which had never permitted the liner to undertake her formal trials. Under the command of Commodore Sir James Bisset the ship travelled to the Isle of Arran and her trials were carried out. Onboard was the ship's namesake Queen Elizabeth and her two daughters, the princesses 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 strict instructions from Sir Percy Bates - who was also aboard the trials, 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, the Elizabeth never held the Blue Riband, as 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 14th 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 Line's 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 her 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).
[edit] 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. The ship capsized in shallow water in Hong Kong Victoria Harbour on 9th January 1972.[3] The wreckage was dismantled for scrap between 1974 and 1975, before the project could be fully 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. However, the keel and boilers remain at the bottom of the harbour still and the area is marked as "Foul" on local sea charts warning ships not to try to anchor there. It is estimated that around 40-50% of the wreck is still on the seabed alongside the large Hong Kong container port. Parker pens produced a special edition of 500 pens made from material recovered from the wreck in a presentation box and these are highly collectable.
The wreck was featured in the 1974 James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun, as a covert headquarters for MI6.
Two of the ship's fire warning system brass plaques were recovered recently by a dredger and these are now on display at The Aberdeen Boat Club in Hong Kong within a display area about the ship.
The charred remnants of her last ensign were cut from the flag pole and framed in 1972, and it still adorns the wall of the officers' mess of marine police HQ in Hong Kong.
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.
[edit] References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: RMS Queen Elizabeth |
- ^ Note: In 1952 became the Queen Mother
- ^ a b Ayrshire Scotland - RMS. QUEEN ELIZABETH
- ^ Queen Elizabeth at: 1934 - 1969; The Last Great Atlantic Fleet
[edit] Further reading
- Butler, D. A. (2002). Warrior Queens: The Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth in World War II (1st ed.). Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books.
- Galbraith, R. (1988). Destiny's Daughter: The Tragedy of RMS Queen Elizabeth. Vermont: Trafalgar Square.
[edit] External links
| Records | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Normandie |
World's largest passenger ship 1940 – 1972 |
Succeeded by France |
