12 Feb The Queen Mary

In October, Herman’s crew went together to New York for the trip to England. In winter months, instead of flying across, the airmen would sail across the Atlantic on one of the ocean liners which had been converted to troop ships.

The Queen Mary, teeming with troops

The Queen Mary was an elegant super-liner that took its inaugural cruise in 1936.  During peace time it accommodated just over 2000 first class, tourist and 3rd class passengers. Once the war began and the British Government called her up for duty, all luxuries were removed, armaments added, and every possible space was remade in order to give the soldiers somewhere to sleep. (To accommodate even more, the soldiers slept in shifts!) The Queen, painted gray, was nicknamed The Gray Ghost. Her 1943 record for the greatest number of people ever carried on a ship still stands at 16,683. Then when the war was over the Mary carried U.S. and Canadian troops home again, a division at a time, and completed her duties by carrying home war brides and their children.

A very fast ship, the Queen Mary could steam at 28 knots and was allowed to cross the Atlantic without an escort. Hitler offered a $250,000 reward to the U-Boat (German submarine) commander that sank her. To avoid The Queen Mary zigzagged her way across the ocean changing course every seven miles. Those zigzags were based on the premise that if a German Sub happened along it would take 10 minutes for it to get lined up. By then the ship would have changed course.

The troops, in the bunks. This was probably the most comfortable place for them to relax.

The Queen left New York with our crew on October 24, 1943 and sailed 3,408 miles to Gourock, Scotland. The following description of what “life was like” on the Queen Mary comes from online accounts and also from Staff Sergeant William S. “Bill” Dixon who sailed 3 weeks later.

We already know that the Queen Mary was teeming with troops. The officers stayed in first class; the enlisted men in the tourist sections. Each person wore a tag and was supposed to stay in their designated part of the ship. One passenger related “We were told that if anyone went overboard, not to bother mentioning it as the ship would stop for nothing.” Bill Dixon, who bunked with the enlisted men remembers “After entering the ship, we walked as far forward as it was possible to go and then descended as far as it was possible to descend. At that point we reached a room that had a sign over the door Max. Occupants 13. We entered, all 63 of us, and found hammocks slung in every available inch of the room. Our pilot said that the officers were griping about their abode which included bunks that were four high, until he saw where we were and made the other three officers on the crew come take a look.”

In the “first class lounge” … waiting in line for dinner

The elegant First-Class Dining Room was converted to a 24-hour mess hall serving 2 meals a day. Mealtimes were staggered and long lines were common. The menus were naturally British and very different to these who were used to American food … wartime staples as chipped beef on toast, kidney stew, brussels sprouts, and stewed apricots. Bill Dixon described the “daily lifeboat and abandon ship drills … they certainly didn’t have enough lifeboats for 15,000 people and so they called it a submarine drill. I called it a ‘prepare to drown drill’ if there really was a submarine around.”

There were lots of dice and card games, primarily poker, singing and piano music. Soldiers were assigned MP (military police) or KP (kitchen police) duty.

The ship arrived at the port city Gourock, Scotland on November 2nd, 9 days later. Many of the crossings were shorter – more like five days. So I’m curious to know why it took so long this trip. The crew would have traveled to England on a troop train. If they went directly to Thurleigh that would have been 387 miles. Bill Dixon said that on the train they “were given sack lunches to eat and one of the delicacies each contained was a pork pie. I had grown up eating pork pies as they were a staple of English farmers and my grandparents had come from the English and Welsh hinterlands. I don’t think anyone else on that train had ever heard of, much less seen, a pork pie. I ended up with several pork pies. One of the reasons they were so much a part of the English farm diet is that they are almost indestructible and can be held unrefrigerated forever — or at least several weeks. I ate pork pies for several days.”

So here they are, heading for an air field north of London.  Probably the first time any of them had been to Europe.  I would love to know when they discovered exactly where they were going. If they did go directly there. If they had been able to eat anything.  If they had finally gotten a good shower.  And what were they really thinking …

NOTE:   I didn’t plan for this post to be so long, but I became fascinated by the story of this great ship. The Queen Mary is now permanently docked at Long Beach, California.  Several years ago, a friend and I were there, saw her, walked onto the ship, and explored.  No one stopped us or said a word.  We felt like we were on a movie set.  I wish I had known then that Herman was on this same ship some 60 years before.  The Queen Mary is now a hotel. I found several videos online, and this is the one I liked the best.   The Titanic music is a little distracting but there are so many pictures through the years that you will get a good idea of her history and her grandeur, even painted gray.

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