On this day in 1950, the Queen Mary was experiencing rough seas on her way to New York. When the liner eventually arrived on February 4, she was 25 hours late, and 50 passengers had suffered injuries, three of them broken bones. Captain George E. Cove stated, "Most of the time we were coming through a whole westerly gale with heavy following seas." Despite the 55 to 75 mile-per-hour winds, the giant Cunarder herself was unscathed. 
Today in 1953, Winston Churchill arrived in Southampton on the Queen Mary after a holiday in Jamaica and an informal visit with Dwight D. Eisenhower, with whom he had become well acquainted during World War II. At the time of their meeting in early January, Churchill was 78-years-old and Eisenhower was less than two weeks away from being sworn in as the United States' 34th president. The prime minister arrived at the residence of Bernard Baruch, where he would stay for the entirety of his visit, just in time for tea with not only Eisenhower, but the Duke and Duchess of Windsor - two other devotees of the Queen Mary.
On this day in 1942, the Queen Mary entered dry dock at the Boston Naval Yard, where her troop capacity was increased from 5,000 to 8,000; standee bunks were added to the promenade deck, swimming pool, and ladies' drawing room and bathroom facilities were increased. More space was also found for storing the tons of provisions required to feed the troops. 
After a 70 mile per hour gale left nearly a hundred passengers and crew members injured, some with broken bones and certainly all with shattered nerves, Cunard decided the time had finally arrived to modify the Queen Mary in order to reduce her characteristic shuddering in rough seas -- something that had long been a complaint of the crew who in their below-deck quarters keenly felt the ship's vibration. On January 26, 1958, she arrived at the King George V graving dock in
Despite the steadier Mary, some missed her more rambunctious days -- in particular a female crew member, who on one journey found herself, due to the ship's rolling, in the arms of Kirk Douglas: "Now the Queen Mary could roll," she reminisces on an audio tape at the Port Cities Southampton Website, "and then they stabilised her, and I think a lot of the fun went out of seagoing life then."
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Departing Suez on this day in 1943, Commodore James Bisset undertook what was one of the most perilous journeys the Queen Mary had yet faced in her War career. Commanding a convoy that included her fellow Cunarder, the Aquitania, as well as the Ile de France, the Nieuw Amsterdam, and the Queen of Bermuda, Bisset was charged with delivering Australian troops to their home country, which was under threat of invasion by Japanese forces. 
On this day in 1938, Captain Robert B. Irving was made commodore of the Cunard White Star fleet. He succeeded Reginald V. Peel, who had retired in December.
Irving's first post with Cunard, in 1904, was as fourth officer on the Verica. Nine years later, while chief officer on the Lusitania, he left to join the Royal Navy. He was serving as lieutenant-commander of the light cruiser, Yarmouth, when it narrowly missed being hit by a shell at the Battle of Jutland during World War I. After the War, he joined the Mauretania, where he was staff captain, and in 1919 was given his first command, as captain of the Venonia. He took the helm of the Queen Mary in 1936, succeeding Commodore Peel, who was ailing. Despite Peel's desire to return to his post after four months of recuperation, he ultimately retired and Irving stepped in.
Commodore Irving was an avid tobacco user, and kept a collection of 120 pipes at his home, Castle Bonshaw Tower, in Scotland (he also kept a dozen more with him in his cabin while at sea). The New York Times described him as a "... commanding figure more than six feet tall, [with] a pleasant, breezy manner and a laugh that resounds throughout the dining room of his ship."
Given the size of the Queen Mary's dining room, it must have been a mighty big laugh.
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A chilly morning breeze swept up Southampton Water into the basin where the Test and Itchen Rivers meet. Beyond Royal Pier, Southampton docks teemed with shipping. I gaped up from Ocean Terminal's dockside at a great ocean liner's bows: How could anything be so big and still float? This gigantic passenger ship was 1019 feet 6 inches long with a 118-foot beam. Her gross weight was 81,237 tons. She lay tethered to bollards by enormous hempen ropes, apparently helpless.
QUEEN MARY was delineated above this leviathan's sixteen ton anchors in black letters thirty inches high over a distance of fifty-five feet. Having just completed her annual refit her livery was freshly painted. The Mary's three funnels were bright Cunard-red with jet-black toppings which contrasted sharply with her pristine gloss-white superstructure. Her ebon hull was pierced for two thousand portholes.
The hustle-bustle of loading drew my interest. Cranes slued their slender jibs carrying netted burdens above the vessel's well deck. Everything from packing cases to cars descended like enormous spiders into the liner's forward cargo holds.
Lurching with my dunnage up the nearest gangway, I presently found myself in a long passageway on C deck. Bulkheads and deckheads had been refurbished with beige paint, a sharp contrast to the carmine deck. The alleyway was divided up into open compartments and would be independently sealed by an automatic watertight door system during emergency drills.
People scurried to-and-fro, wheeling carts, hefting burlap sacks, sides of meat, fish boxes, crates of vegetables, and myriad sundries. A great ship was victualling for a sea voyage.
I was completely lost. Passers-by continuously directed me upwards, ever upwards through seven of the vessel’s twelve decks, until I reached the engineers' quarters where the Chief Engineer's writer informed me that I had to sign on.
People helpfully steered me towards the Port Garden Lounge on Promenade deck. A queue straggled from a makeshift desk for the bureaucratic gentlemen huddled behind it. Pot plants abounded, hanging baskets sprouted cascading fronds of variegated greenery, and wicker chairs lay siege to glass topped tables with wrought iron legs. Completely immured with glass, the seaboard side gave this magnificent room a luscious tropical atmosphere.
Time shrank the queue.
"Discharge Book please," the Board of Trade official sighed up at me. He leafed through my blue linen-covered book, stamped a page, and scribbled over the violet imprint before stacking it with some others. "That'll be returned when you leave the ship. Sign here." He ordered, gesturing at a multi columned manifest.
I picked up a pen and scanned the broadsheet headed QSTS Queen Mary. Beneath this legend was a neatly compiled list of engineers' signatures, ranks, job descriptions, and salaries. At the very bottom was my name, 6th Junior 7th Engineer Officer, floater, 78 pounds /month, and a blank space awaiting my signature. I signed on.
"You're not at the bottom of the heap, y'know." The BOT man grinned, "Look at it this way - you're holding the rest up!"
The next thirty hours became a brand-new experience crammed with technical data. Raising steam boggled the mind. The Mary had five boiler rooms. The turbines steamed by the three Scotch boilers in Number One stokehold generated the vessel's hotel service lights and auxiliaries.
The other four stokeholds contained six Yarrow water-tube boilers each. When 'flashed up' and put on line, superheated steam powered the forward and after engine rooms. Both engine rooms held two main engines, each consisting of four Parsons turbines linked in parallel to a pinion gearbox connected to a long drive shaft to spin one of the quadruple propellers. At sea, these 35-ton bronze propellers would revolve at one hundred and seventy-four revolutions per minute giving an average speed of twenty-eight to thirty knots.
On Thursday morning, standby was called for the ship leaving harbour. I reported to the after engine room manoeuvring platform. Wisps of steam ballooned from the turbine glands. The bridge telegraph indicators had moved from FINISHED WITH ENGINES to STANDBY.
The Chief Engineer, in full-dress uniform, was chatting amiably with the Senior Second Engineer. Stationed by the manoeuvring wheels were the 4-8 watch engineers in readiness for the first engine movement. Attired in white boilersuits, the 8-12 watchkeepers paced the checkered plated steel manoeuvring platform like caged polar bears, ready to react any unusual response from the polished brass instruments. Nowadays all systems are computer controlled, but forty years ago, my colleagues and I have had some heart-stopping experiences during these critical manoeuvring periods.
Directed to the port manoeuvring station, I became subject to the droll humour that haunts the maritime profession. An engineer whom I'd had never met before, lounged against the port astern wheel.
"First tripper?" he asked.
"Aye."
"Scotchman?"
"Scotsman," I corrected him.
"Tough luck!"
Before I could parry this ethnic slur, the platform second engineer ordered my antagonist topside. I studied the telegraph, nervously. A brass plate fastened to each manoeuvring wheel dictated the shaft RPM required for each movement. My reflection in the gleaming brass quadrant pondered on this dilemma: When the order came, should I answer the telegraph immediately? Or should I supply the requested speed first and then acknowledge the bridge? Perhaps I should ask the second engineer.
A loud clamour startled me as the clanging telegraph demanded the first movement: HALF ASTERN. I froze. The jangling persisted until an arm festooned with gold braid materialised above my left shoulder, and a hand on the end this bras d'or, aligned the brass handle to the green indicator.
The ringing stopped. The Chief's pudgy finger jabbed at the astern manoeuvring wheel. "Open that valve . . . NOW!"
Panic-stricken, I clutched the valve wheel rim and pulled frantically for all my worth. Nothing happened.
"THE OTHER BLOODY WAY!"
I heaved in the opposite direction. Nothing happened. The Chief blasphemed as he gave the wheel a quick practised jerk. The valve opened smoothly.
"KEEP OPENING IT UNTIL THAT GAUGE READS ONE HUNDRED POUNDS!" he bawled over the astern turbines' throaty whine. Opening the valve further increased the noise in volume and pitch. The engine room shuddered like forty road rollers trundling along a cobbled street. The port shaft tachometer read 80 rpm astern.
"All right . . . Keep her there lad," ordered the Chief, his voice softer with encouragement. Much, much later, I was to discover that this gentleman's aplomb became enriched with diplomacy when dining with our first-class passengers.
I risked a quick glance around the engine room. Handrails, gauges, lights and floor plates were quivering with the tremendous vibration. Great billows of steam surged from the howling turbines. The starboard engine remained at rest. I swivelled my head back, just in time to catch the next engine movement: STOP. I answered the telegraph promptly and quickly closed the astern valve. I glimpsed around, feeling quite smug now that I'd the hang of it.
"The ahead wheel mister!" called the Chief.
The puzzled look on my face brought the Chief back to my side. He eased the ahead manoeuvring wheel open. "Look," he instructed, gesturing at the tachometer. "Momentum is still spinning the turbines astern. You have to brake them by using the ahead wheel."
"Ok Chief."
The next movement commanded full astern. With immediate response I introduced steam to the turbines.
"THAT'S BETTER!" yelled the Chief.
Sound and vibration built to a crescendo until the telegraph jangled STOP minutes later. I reacted smartly and spun the astern wheel shut. Lending my full weight to the ahead wheel, I gave it a great heave. The valve spun open with sudden force. The uproar ceased quite suddenly. I gulped and hesitantly peered aft. Totally unconcerned, everybody was attending to their duties. This seemed to be the norm, except to me. Fuelled by adrenalin my heart thumped with excitement. Here I was, not yet twenty-one years of age, having the experience of a lifetime taking a major role in the operation of the famed Queen Mary!
Some time later after being relieved, I got the chance to observe our departure from Boat decks. The liner lay midstream in the River Test, just opposite Hythe with her bow pointed down Southampton Water. The tugs, released from their task, chugged jauntily back to their berths. A chocolate milkshake frothed from the massive propellers even as they barely spun.
In an hour or so, the telegraphs would ring FULL AWAY, and RMS Queen Mary would sail majestically down the Solent past the Isle of Wight on a new adventure.
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On this day in England, 1947, the Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice found that the British Naval cruiser, Curacoa, was at fault in its collision with the troop ship, Queen Mary. The accident occurred in October, 1942, off the coast of Donegal, as the ship headed for the United Kingdom loaded with over 10,000 American G.I.s.. The Curacoa, acting as escort, cut across the Mary's bow as she followed her typical zig-zag course to avoid German u-boats. Unable to change direction in time, the giant liner cut the smaller cruiser in half. Three hundred and thirty eight men on the Curocoa perished as the ship went down. Originally it was reported that a u-boat was in the area, but this was later found to be untrue.
The action brought by the Admiralty against the Cunard White Star Line for £1,500,000 in damages was dismissed by Sir Gonne St. Clair Pilcher, the presiding judge; additionally, he ruled that court fees were to be paid by the Admiralty. In his opinion, the Queen Mary's captain was correct to assume the cruiser would stay out of the bigger ship's way and stated that the accident was "one which ought never to have been permitted to happen."
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On this day in 1961, a Reuters story in the New York Times reported that two more British shipbuilders had put in a bid to build the Queen Mary's replacement, for the "stateliest ship afloat" was now in her twilight years. The company, Vickers-Armstrongs and Swan, along with another, Hunter and Wigham Richardson, intended to form a joint company, each with a half interest. Had they won the contract, the keel would have been built at Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, England, with the outfitting taking place at the Walker Naval Yard in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Little did they or the other six bidders know that the 70,000 ton ship, expected to cost £30,000,000, would never be built due to lagging passenger revenues on the transatlantic route. However, in 1965--when the original ship was projected to sail on its maiden voyage--Cunard had apparently changed its mind; in July of that year, the keel was laid down in the John Brown Shipyard, Clydebank, for the Queen Elizabeth II [pictured above].
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On this day in 1936, the New York Times published a story on Britain's move to regain its dominance of the sea lane "between Daunt's Rock and the Ambrose Channel Lightship" -- the former being the official starting point of the westbound transatlantic passage, the latter serving as a beacon marking the main shipping channel for New York Harbor. The Mauretania, Homeric, Majestic, and Olympic all had been retired, leaving the Queen Mary, with her impending sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth, to fulfill the hopes and restore the pride of the British nation--for Germany's Europa and Bremen, as well as France's Normandie, were faster than any ship in the Cunard White Star line. Not only that, the Germans were maintaining a weekly service to New York, while the French were taking steps to establish one as well. Emphasizing the importance of the new liner, according to the NYT, the British government had turned down another group of London's shipowners seeking money for a passenger service to New York "whose star attraction was to be a £10 fare." All resources and energy were being put into the two Queens.
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On this day in 1982, the Granada Television production of Brideshead Revisited was released in the United States and shown on PBS. What does this have to do with the Queen Mary, you ask? Apparently the book's author, Evelyn Waugh, set the novel's ocean liner scenes on the ship (though in the recent film version the ship is shown as the Berengaria. Interestingly, one of the off-ship interiors in the movie is decorated with artwork inspired by or actually taken from the Mary: Deer Group, by John Skeaping. In the book, The Art of the RMS Queen Mary, this artwork is listed as lost). Mr. Waugh never said outright that he was describing her, but anyone familiar with the ship would recognize his depiction, particularly of the wood, the bronze gates, and the Art Deco furniture. 
Today in 1935, the New York Times reported Sir Edgar Britten [left] would take command of the British line fleet and be made a Cunard White Star commodore at the age of 60. At that time, a year after the launch of the Queen Mary and a year before her maiden voyage (which he helmed), Sir Edgar was master of the RMS Berengaria. The paper also reported that he flew "...the burgee at the main truck of his vessel" upon his arrival in Southampton.
More from Sergeant Hanson, continuing today in 1943 his seemingly endless journey to the Middle East aboard the Queen Mary (it's hard to fathom that after all this tedium and suffering in the heat, Sgt. Hanson and his fellow officers would have to jump into Spitfires and commence fighting a World War. Life was lived large then. Very large). 
On this day in 1947, MacDonald Gill, the fellow who painted the fabulous mural of the Atlantic Ocean, entitled simply, "Decorative Map of the Atlantic," [pictured left] passed away at the age of 63. The map remains today where it was throughout the ship's career, even in wartime, on the forward bulkhead of the cabin-class dining room. Across it, a miniature crystal replica of the Queen Mary followed its route, navigating cloud and star across the ocean, from London’s venerable Big Ben to the skyscrapers of New York. This seemingly whimsical touch is one of my favorite things about the Queen Mary, though at one time it was taken so seriously by the ship's captains, they wouldn’t come down to eat unless it was functioning properly. 
On this day in 1991, the Agatha Christie T.V. mystery entitled, The Million Dollar Bond Robbery, was released in the United Kingdom. In it, Hercule Poirot, Belgian detective extraordinaire, accepts a case which finds him traveling on the Queen Mary's maiden voyage--something his sidekick Captain Hastings is keen to do despite Poirot's reluctance (he fears the mal de mer, though in the end it is Hastings who succumbs, blaming it on oysters). Though the Queen Mary wasn't yet a twinkle in Cunard's eye when the original short story was published in 1925--Miss Christie places the action on two other liners, the Olympia and the Gigantic--liberties were taken for the television adaptation. Unfortunately, that's as far as the producers we willing to go in their homage to the ship. The episode wasn't filmed in Long Beach, but somewhere in England.
Items of interest on the breakfast menu for Monday, January 12, 1959:
Today in 1938, the Queen Mary was drydocked in Southampton, where 1,000 men were at work scraping her hull, tuning up her engines, and giving her funnels a fresh coat of Cunard red (which is actually a sort of orange shade, originally consisting of bright ochre and buttermilk that "cooked" onto the smokestacks--though this process was no longer necessary by the time the Mary was launched, the resulting signature color remains). Despite the tremendous manpower, the ship's refitting would take two weeks to complete. 
Another entry from Sgt. Hanson of the RAF, dated January 9, 1943, as he continued to keep his clandestine diary aboard the Queen Mary, now a troop ship ferrying soldiers from Australia to the Middle East:
On this day in 1953, Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, boards the Queen Mary and sets off for yet another trip to the States, almost exactly a year since his previous visit. One of his stops this time was a meeting with, among others, Secretary of State Dean Acheson (pictured here shaking hands with Churchill) and Averell Harriman of the Mutual Security Agency (to Acheson's right).
In 1942, Sergeant Gerald Edward Hanson of the Royal Air Force (RAF) kept a journal as he journeyed on board the Queen Mary from Greenock, Scotland to the Middle East. As secrecy was strictly enforced, this wasn't allowed, but he managed it by writing 1,600 words to a page on both sides of the paper. The diary was only four pages long, but it covered a little over a month, from December 21 to January 25. It's a fascinating record, even in its mundane aspects, of a tense time for England and the world--a time in which the Queen Mary played an invaluable role as a troopship. 
Today in 1952, Winston Churchill arrives in New York with Sir Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon and British Foreign Secretary, to "get in touch" with President Harry S. Truman. Says Truman, "Great Britain and the Commonwealth of the United States are the closest of friends and you and I want to keep it that way." Both men agree that lasting peace is their ultimate aspiration.
On this day in 2010, the Queen Mary 2 will set sail from New York City for a trip around the world.* The ship will dock 108 days later in Southampton, England, having stopped at 37 ports along the way, including Civitavecchia (does this sound made up to anyone else?), Suez, Muscat, Bombay, Phuket (always fun to say), Hong Kong, Shanghai, Yokohama, Guam (ooo, fun!), Auckland, Sydney, Capetown, Rio de Janeiro, Barbados, and the ever exciting and glamorous Ft. Lauderdale.
On this day in 1941, the Queen Mary, having been enlisted as a troop carrier the previous year, arrived in Fremantle, Australia, helmed by Commodore Robert B. Irving. The ship had undergone massive changes in order to increase her troop capacity and was regularly ferrying soldiers to the Middle East, which had become the principal theater of war. This photo shows the Mary, now clad in gray, leaving Sydney Harbor with Australian soldiers bound for action in Egypt.
On January, 2, 1949, the previous day having run aground in a gale near Cherbourg, France--her usual stop on the outward bound journey to New York--the Queen Mary was back in Southampton for inspection. Apparently, one of the Queen's anchors had gotten tangled up with "Pluto," the oil pipeline used by the allies on D-Day. Despite the fact the Cherbourg port was not only chiseled out of hard rock but littered with German u-boat wreckage, she went aground on a bed of soft sand and shell, showing the sort of luck she'd continue to have throughout her career. Captain Harry Grattidge had her back in the water at high tide. After divers in Southampton examined her hull, the damaged area was reinforced with concrete--a hundred tons!--but just as a precautionary measure. She was quickly on her way again. 
