For many years the largest ship in the world and, arguably, "the ultimate
ship".
The Queen Elizabeth was designed to provide a fast, regular, luxurious transatlantic
crossing with her sister ship the Queen Mary.
Despite looking similar to Queen Mary, she was far more modern and was
not as heavily art-deco inside as the Queen Mary.
When she was completed, World War 2 had already started. She
was painted grey and her maiden voyage was cancelled.
Sitting in the Clyde she was at
great risk from German bombers and also an inconvenience since her berth was urgently
needed for the construction of warships.
In complete secrecy she set sail for New York at full speed, without
any sea trials and with most of her launch gear still attached to her hull. Even
the captain did not know the destination for his new ship until he opened the
sealed envelope he had been given. She arrived in
New York 4 days later. She sat there from March to November of 1940 then sailed to
Singapore to be fitted out as a troopship.
Video of the Queen Elizabeth arriving in New York in 1945 with 15,000
troops on board
When the war was over, the Queens had carried over a million troops, many of which had
then to be taken home - often along with their new brides! The Queen
Elizabeth finally was completed with her luxury fittings and entered scheduled
service with Cunard for the first time in March 1946, 6 years after her first
secret trip to New York. During the war she had carried over 750,000
troops and travelled 500,000 miles.
Together with the Queen Mary she gave 20 years service after world
war two and were incredibly successful and profitable, validating the
vision of her creaters in the early 1930s of two big ships providing a
weekly 'transatlantic ferry' service in complete luxury.
She was decommissioned along with the Queen Mary when the
competition from Air-travel became too fierce. After an unsuccessful spell
in Florida, she was eventually bought by a Hong Kong shipping magnate, C.Y.Tung,
who intended to turn her into a floating University - the Seawise University.
He completed huge renovations on the ship in Hong Kong Harbour which
included completely restoring all her boilers, to give her back her very high
speeds. Sadly,
though, an arsenist had other ideas and a fire started on the 9th of January 1972 in
multiple parts of the ship simultaneously. With fire doors open,
sprinklers deactivated, and hull "shell" doors open near the waterline, she was
doomed...
Eventually she rolled onto her side in Hong Kong Harbour where
she continued to burn for over a week.
