Luxury liner Queen Elizabeth’s glittering career was interrupted by war and ended by jet airliners
WHEN King George VI’s wife Queen Elizabeth launched her namesake ocean liner, there were mishaps and it took eight years before she could do the job for which it had been made
Today in History
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A HUGE crowd had gathered at the Clydebank Shipyard, in Scotland, 80 years ago today, to see the launch of what was then the world’s largest ocean liner, the Queen Elizabeth.
Named in honour of the wife of King George VI, it was expected that the popular royal couple would be at the ceremony. But the global political situation at the time was tense. German leader Adolf Hitler’s demands for territory in Czechoslovakia brought fears of war. The king was forced to stay in London while his wife was sent to do the honours, accompanied by the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.
The Queen gave a speech conveying the message from her husband, for people to be “of good cheer” despite the “dark clouds” gathering. She also said she hoped that “by man’s patience and goodwill, order may yet be brought out of confusion and peace out of turmoil”.
But there was an embarrassing moment as she went to launch the ship — her microphone cut out.
The words “I name her Queen Elizabeth” were not heard by most of the crowd.
The ship then began moving prematurely down the slipway and the Queen had to quickly cut the ribbon to send a bottle of wine smashing against the hull.
The ceremony took minds off the threat of war. But the great ocean liner would have to wait eight more years to do the job for which it was meant.
Commissioned by Cunard, then one of world’s biggest shipping companies, the ship, along with the Queen Mary, had been planned as early 1926 as a replacement for its ageing giants — the Aquitania, the Mauretania and the Berengaria — taking passengers across the Atlantic.
The building of the Queen Mary, then known as hull number 534, began in 1930 but the Great Depression delayed her completion. It was saved by the British government who advanced £4.5 million to finish the ship. Launched in 1934 by Queen Mary, wife of King George V, it sailed on its maiden voyage in May 1936.
But that same year construction began on a larger, even more luxurious ship, known as hull 552. It could have been named after the wife of the new king, Edward VIII, had he not been forced to abdicate after insisting he be allowed to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
Instead the ship was named after Queen Elizabeth, wife of his brother George VI who became king in December 1936.
Elizabeth launched the ship on September 27, 1938, her first major public appearance and the first time the public heard her voice when the ceremony was broadcast live by radio.
The ship, scheduled for its maiden voyage in 1940, was unfinished when war broke out in September 1939. In 1940 orders were issued for the ship to be sent away from Britain because it presented too tempting a target for the Germans. Painted grey it made its maiden voyage to New York and was then taken to Singapore.
Leaving Singapore in 1941, she headed to Sydney to finish its refit as a troop ship. It passed sister ship RMS Queen Mary in Sydney Harbour, which was also in Sydney being converted as a troopship. The port couldn’t hold both at the same time and authorities made sure that two such big targets were never moored together.
For five months she transported Australian troops to and from North Africa. She sailed out of Sydney for the last time in April 1942, heading to New York. She spent the rest of the war making trips across the Atlantic, carrying Allied troops.
When the war ended RMS Queen Elizabeth ferried soldiers back home before it was released from service in 1946. The ship was visited by Queen Elizabeth and her daughters as it underwent sea trials as an ocean liner. Fitted out as a luxury liner, she finally began carrying paying passengers across the Atlantic in October 1946.
However, the ship had a humiliating grounding on a sandbank at Southampton in 1947 but was easily refloated.
For two decades it ferried thousands of passengers, including many rich and famous. In 1950 Elizabeth Taylor and new husband Conrad Hilton had their honeymoon aboard the ship. Noel Coward also made frequent trips, often playing piano to entertain guests. He also liked taking a punt in the “Ship’s auction”, betting on how far the ship travelled each day, winning £400 with Eddie Fisher on one trip. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor also made many trips, and Queen Elizabeth (by then the Queen Mother) took a cruise on the ship on her way to tour America in 1954.
The Queen Elizabeth was retired in 1968, a victim of the popularity of jet airliners. It was sold off and used briefly as a floating hotel and tourist attraction in Florida, but was destroyed by a fire while being refitted as a floating university in Hong Kong.