The outbreak of World War II had resulted in the British Admiralty requisitioning the now-famous
Clyde-built ocean liner the RMS Queen Mary as a troopship. And here now, is the story of what
it was like for the men and women who lived aboard the ship as they sailed off to war.
Because the Queen Mary was built with the idea that she might someday be used for war,
the British Admiralty dictated the engineering requirements of the ship.
The decks of the ship were built with a higher degree of redundant strength
than a typical ocean liner, in case the Queen Mary would ever need to carry heavy machinery
or cargo such as tanks or artillery. Her hull was 1.5 inches thick in some areas,
adding rigidity against collisions. And she had what was known as a double hull,
meaning that in addition to the typical double-bottom keel of most ocean liners,
the walls going up to the waterline of the ship had an inner lining of watertight steel plates,
making her more resistant to flooding and sinking. Not only did she have 18 watertight compartments
in the form of engine rooms, boiler rooms, generator rooms and cargo holds, but the spaces
inbetween her double-walled hulls were divided into 66 watertight compartments of their own.
All of this redundancy of strength not only made the Queen Mary and her runningmate Queen Elizabeth,
the safest passenger ships afloat, but also among the most valuable assets to the British Empire.
The two Cunard Queens were the fastest ocean liners in the world,
and once their rival the SS Normandie had caught fire and capsized in New York, there was no other
passenger ship that could match them for size or speed. This ability to rocket through the oceans
would prove invaluable to the war effort, as the two Queens could pass in and out of enemy range
before the ships had a chance to torpedo them. Adolph Hitler's bounty of one million reichsmarks
and the Iron Cross with oak leaves went unclaimed, as no submarine captain could ever sink the ships.
But the same could not be said for other ocean liners used during the war.
It was for this reason that the two Queens would prove most useful as troopships, at the start of
the war, Queen Mary carried as many as 5,000 servicemen. But that number more than doubled
as the war raged on, despite the original capacity of the ship capped at around 3,200.
During these early years, before the United States entered the war, the Queen Mary was being used to
transport Australian troops to the battle raging to protect the Suez Canal from enemy forces.
It was during these voyages that everyone on the ship was subjected to the heat of the tropics.
The Cunard Queens were designed for a service life ferrying civilians across the North Atlantic
which had fairly chilly weather most of the year.
Therefore the only rooms on the ship that required cool air conditioning were the large public rooms
deep within the ship, such as the various dining halls, smoking rooms, and lounges.
But all other spaces like the hallways, cabins and staterooms, only had basic ventilation.
While the troops were being transported across the Red Sea, the hot, dry desert air flowed into each room
through the ventilation ducts. The temperatures inside the ship reached upwards of 43 celsius
or 110 fahrenheit, and whatever air conditioning the public rooms did have,
was too weak to keep up with the influx of heat. Not to mention the hundreds of warm bodies of men
and women seeking whatever cool air remained in these rooms. An undisclosed number of military
personnel had suffered heat stroke in the hot months, the death toll remains an untold number.
One could easily suggest they take turns having a dip in one of the two indoor pools the ship had,
except that during the conversion to troop transport, the pools were emptied
and converted into spaces for bunk beds. A cabin stateroom originally designed for
two people might have as many as 12 men sleeping in steel bunk bed cots. In many areas of the ship,
the cots had only 18 inches of space between them, meaning that there was only enough room
for you to lay flat on your back, but not comfortably on your side.
The Queen Mary’s grand ballroom was converted into a makeshift hospital for wounded soldiers,
so all the opulence and decor the ship once had, was either removed prior to service,
or the most valuable walls and paintings covered over with protective sheets of leather.
Sometimes to this day you can find some of the Australian troops names or initials
carved into the wood on the underside of the cabinet drawers of the various rooms.
After the United States entered the war in December of 1941,
it was soon decided that the Queen Mary would be used to transport whole divisions
of American troops across the oceans of the world. Between 10,000 and 15,000 men would
be stuffed into the ship on a single voyage. There wasn’t enough bunk beds for everyone,
so they operated on a system called Hot Racking, otherwise known as Hot Bed.
Essentially, the troops could be assigned shifts of 6 hours in a bunk, barely enough time to get
some rest, but they would then have to give up their bunk to the next man. It was because
of this that many troops had decided to sleep up on deck, which was often more comfortable anyway
because despite the tropic temperatures, the ship’s speed made for a good breeze going past.
With the ship stuffed to the gills with men and materials,
there really wasn’t much room for recreation. The people aboard the Queen Mary often played cards,
talked their ears off about stories of life back home, or played pranks on each other.
One eyewitness account said that he saw a group of men horsing around on the boat deck, and as the ship
rolled slightly with the heavy seas, one of the young men missed his step as he wrestled around,
and he tripped and fell over the railing as the ship was tilted toward the ocean.
The fun and games were over after that, you see, everyone knew that if you yelled ‘man overboard’,
nothing could be done, the ship could not stop for anything or anyone, not while there were
over 10,000 troops aboard, and not while enemy submarines patrolled the waters.
The young man was forever lost to the rough and frigid waters of the ocean.
As you can imagine, with so many men on a single voyage, keeping them all organized, was quite a task.
Too many men in one particular area could cause the ship to be dangerously unbalanced.
So the ship was divided into three sections: Red, White, and Blue. Every soldier assigned to the
ship was given a colored button that corresponded to their placement on the ship, and they could not
leave their assigned section unless by order. The Red section went from the bow, to the first-class
forward staircase. Blue went from the second class forward staircase all the way to the stern,
and White was the section in between the two. Two meals a day were served in the first-class
main restaurant. The restaurant was originally designed to seat all 800 first-class passengers
in a single sitting, but that capacity was not high enough for a ship filled with as many as
12,000 soldiers or more. They installed bench seats, increasing the dining capacity of the
room to 2,000 men in a single sitting. This meant that both meal times would require 6
different sittings to feed the entire ship with a maximum of 45 minutes between serving times.
Breakfast lasted between 6:30 am and 11 am with Dinner being served between 3pm to 7:30pm.
It was said that the ship’s kitchen was limited on meat slicers, so one in particular was designated
specifically for cutting the breakfast ham. The ham slicer was operating 24 hours a day throughout
the entire 4-day voyage across the ocean. One of the reasons that the soldiers still
preferred their crossing aboard the Queen Mary despite the shortcomings of being stuffed in
like sardines in a can, was because the food on the ship rivaled that of any meal served
in a military ship or camp. The Queen Mary’s main restaurant had one of the largest kitchens aboard
any vessel at the time, and below the kitchen was the largest refrigeration space on any ship
besides the Queen Elizabeth. This meant that while other ships barely had room to hold canned foods,
the Cunard Queens often had the capacity to carry fresh meats and vegetables.
The freshness made all the difference, and the men all looked forward to lining up each
morning for their serving of fried eggs, ham, and toast. The dinner menu changed each day
but they could look forward to a meal such as roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy,
a side of roasted vegetables covered in butter, and an American biscuit to soak up the leftover sauce.
The officers traveling aboard the ship dined in the second class restaurant,
they ate at regular tables with their food served to them by a steward.
At the end of the voyage, the officers were expected to tip their stewards.
Many of the ship’s interiors were converted to specific uses for the war. The Second Class
cocktail bar on Main Deck was used as a pharmacy to treat ailments or
minor injuries and helped provide doses of medication to the ballroom hospital above.
The forward cargo holds on the bow of the ship transported prisoners of war to the United States,
the poor living conditions of those dark, cold, and damp spaces, leaves much to the imagination.
Eventually, the Queen Mary had to stop delivering men to Australia since Japanese forces were
increasing in the South Pacific. The Queen Mary would return to her North Atlantic run,
ferrying American troops from New York to the River Clyde in Scotland.
The ship became a shuttle for GI’s headed for the battlefields in Europe.
This was a particularly risky run because German U-boats often floated in the middle
of the Queen’s typical route, and especially along the waters between Ireland and the United Kingdom.
The Mary’s troopship service came to another heroic peak when in April of 1942,
the United States Pentagon was planning a military operation so massive, it would
take several months to complete. Operation Bolero was designated to move over 1 million
US troops to the European Continent in an effort to overwhelm the Axis forces. It would require any
available troopship the US had, and…they would take temporary command of the Cunard fleet.
Mighty ships like the Aquitania, Mauritania and Queen Elizabeth would be re-assigned to this grand
endeavor, and leading the fleet at the forefront was the powerful speed of the RMS Queen Mary.
Operation Bolero was in full force. Darting past an enemy submarine off the coast of New York,
the Queen Mary was out of sight before they could fire torpedos, the crew of the Mary reported back
the location of the sub to Navy Pilot Raymond Rhoads who peered down at the galant vessel from
high above, marveling at her speed, “From the wake she left, we had to keep reminding ourselves she
was just a thing made of steel!” Indeed, the grand old lady at times commanded the ocean,
instead of plowing the waters, it was almost as if…the sea parted before the Queen.
While the Cunard Queens were specifically built to withstand the hellish weather of the North Atlantic,
the Queen Mary in particular had issues with rolling. Now, all ships roll with the sea,
but the Queen Mary was quite famous for rolling easily and frequently.
You see, her metacentric height was not low enough. It was once said by an officer, that a strong breeze would cause the
ship to roll the milk out of a cup of tea. In the first few months of her operating life, over 20
miles of bakelite handrails were retro-actively added to the ship, so passengers could hold on.
But as the Queen Mary carried upwards of 10,000 troops on her upper decks,
she became even more top-heavy, increasing the severity of her rolling.
Eyewitnesses recalled that the Queen Mary often reeked of the smell of vomit. The men assigned to mopping the
decks worked almost around the clock, as soon as they cleaned up one mess, another would appear.
The public toilets on the ship often had men lined up at them, so those who were in
a rush to relieve themselves would climb to the upper decks to do their business over the side.
On October 2nd 1942 the Queen Mary was involved in an incident so tragic, that the British and
American governments would try to keep it a secret for the duration of the war.
The Queen Mary was rounding the seas of Northern Ireland on her way to her destination in Scotland.
While the Queen Mary was often too fast to be escorted across the Atlantic,
she did require an escort as she approached her destination.
She was to rendezvous with HMS Curacoa. Curacoa was named after a small island
off the coast of Queensland, Australia, and not the Dutch Caribbean Island of Curacao.
The Queen Mary was on her zig-zag course, designed to make it difficult for enemy ships to calculate
her next move in order to intercept her. HMS Curacoa came alongside her, heading 25 knots,
but Captain Boutwood was well aware that the Queen Mary would eventually overtake the cruiser.
The problem came with a misunderstanding of the Queen’s course. As the Grey Ghost turned,
that put her on a collision course with her escort. The Captain of the Queen Mary assured
his officers that the Curacoa would adjust their course because the Mary took precedence.
On board the Curacoa it was assumed that the Queen Mary would be the one steer away
since the escort had the right of way. As the two ships came dangerously close, the first officer
of the escort ship was about to give the order to steer away, but by then it was already too late,
the Mary was barreling down on them. The sharp bow of the massive liner sliced through the middle
of the cruiser like a knife cutting butter. The passengers aboard the Mary felt a slight shudder,
and some watched in horror as his ship plowed through Curacoa. The men aboard the ill-fated
cruiser barely had time to react, they did what they could to survive, leaping into the cold water
or holding on for dear life as the stern section swiftly dropped into the sea.
The men on the bow section only had a few seconds more before it too would drop way.
Some of the men that survived being taken down with the ship were pulled towards the speeding
hull of Queen Mary, and sucked into her massive 18 foot diameter propellers which churned the waters.
As the ship steamed away, the Americans aboard the Mary had tossed overboard whatever
buoyant objects they could, many of them getting ahold of their own life jackets and throwing them
into the messy wreckage, desperately hoping the floatation devices would save as many as possible.
Down in the cold waters, the survivors floated among a thick layer of fuel oil,
many had accidentally inhaled the oil, and died of suffocation.
Though the Queen Mary alerted the nearest Royal Navy vessels of the incident,
it took several hours for a convoy of battleships and cruisers to arrive.
Many of the initial survivors of the incident that waited for rescue, had drowned as a result
of exhaustion. In total, the collision with HMS Curacoa resulted in the deaths of 338 men.
It was a situation so tragic that if word got out, it would have caused political and
emotional chaos, the British Admiralty and United States government worked together to
keep the accident hushed until the end of the war was in sight. Once the public knew,
an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the catastrophe.
What didn’t help the situation was that the Queen Mary never stopped to assist the survivors,
she continued to steam ahead to Scotland. But the officers involved had tried to remind everyone
that the Mary was under orders not to stop for anything or anyone, after all, there were over
10,000 men aboard the troopship, and they were crossing through submarine infested waters.
After striking the cruiser, Queen Mary dropped off her GI’s and had the damage to her hull inspected.
Part of her bow stem was crumpled but the watertight bulkhead behind the damage held firm.
The ship was in no further danger of sinking, but an immediate repair was necessary,
however, it would be too dangerous to repair her in the United Kingdom
because the Germans continued to bomb the cities from overhead.
The Queen Mary limped back to the United States, straight to Boston harbor where she was dry-docked
and had her damage repaired. Before long she was refloated and loaded up again to resume her duty.
The collision with HMS Curacoa was a tragedy that would forever haunt the ship’s reputation,
though, it would never over-shadow the valiant and heroic efforts of her war time service.
Next time, on the final chapter of this three-part series, we learn about the
final years of the ship’s wartime service; the stability of the Queen Mary is put to
the ultimate test in an event that could have ended the lives of everyone aboard,
and…a secret passenger aboard the ship would plot the ending of the war.