Southern California - Recipes from Historic California - page 273

THE QUEEN MARY
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The story of Cunard's Queen Mary begins in North America. Samuel Cunard built and operated
mail ships on the East Coast before securing the right to the transatlantic mail service between
Great Britain and America in 1840. The new business allowed the company to add RMS (Royal
Mail Ship) to the names of all their ships, but they soon changed to Cunard Steamship Ltd., after
its founder.
The mail service route included Liverpool, where Cunard eventually built his headquarters in
1918. From this location, Cunard would dominate the transatlantic route for more than 150 years.
One of her competitors was The White Star Line, who tried valiantly, some say recklessly, to cap-
ture the preeminent position Cunard held.
In December 1930, Cunard engaged the John Brown & Company Shipbuilding and Engineer-
ing shipyard at Clydebank, Scotland, to begin work on hull number 534. The Great Depression
forced a halt in construction in 1931 and Cunard applied to the government for loan assistance. The
loan was offered, along with enough money to build a companion ship (hull 552 would become the
Queen Elizabeth ), but there was a major condition that had to be met. Cunard must absorb The
White Star Line, which was in severe financial difficulty following the sinking of its flagship, Ti-
tanic , in 1912 with a loss of 1,522 passengers and crew members.
The merger was completed, the loan given, and work resumed on hull 534 in 1934. The ship
was launched later that year, and named after Queen Mary, the consort of King George V. At the
time, a turbine steamer already carried the name Queen Mary, but Cunard convinced the other line
to rename its ship TS Queen Mary II . Cunard called its newest ship the RMS Queen Mary .
When launched, the Queen Mary —at 80,774 tons—was about 1,000 tons larger than her French
rival, the Normandie . But the French were not to be outdone. Modifications increased the size of the
Normandie to make it 2,500 tons larger than the Queen Mary .
The ships continued to compete for superlatives and supremacy. The speed records for crossing
the Atlantic from east to west and west to east changed hands several times between the two behe-
moths. The issue was not settled until 1952 when the SS United States surpassed them both.
When World War II broke out, the Queen Mary was in New York alongside the Normandie .
They were soon joined by the Queen's sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth . Britain sent its ships to Syd-
ney to carry Australian and New Zealand troops back to Great Britain for the war. These ships were
prized targets for the Germans, with Hitler offering a $250,000 reward and the Iron Cross to any
U-boat commander who could sink one.