While the Queen was in New York, she faced an uncertain future. In the end she was made into a troop ship. Work began swiftly and she was painted all over grey and was made ready for war, at least as much as possible in a merchant port. She was fitted with spotlights and was guarded around the clock for fear of a Nazi saboteur getting to the Queen. For six months she tied up with Normandie and eventually, after her top secret maiden voyage, Queen Mary's sister ship Queen Elizabeth.
On March 1st, 1940 the admiralty requisitioned Queen Mary for war duties. Cunard, although most likely cringing at the thought of sending the Queen to war dutifully complied and on March 21st, the Queen, with no official send off or announcement, steamed off. She steamed down by South America, then across the Atlantic to South Africa where she was refuled as quickly as she arrived before heading to Australia. Arriving in the New South Wales city of Sydney she was handed over to the Cockatoo Docks & Engineering Company for a full convert into a trooper. In the end, she had room for 5,500 troops. On May 5th she sailed from Sydney with 5000 troops bound for England, joining along the way her running mate and first world war veteran Aquitania, plus the Empress of Japan, Empress of Canada, Empress of Britain, Andes and Mauretania II. Also with them were the escourt cruisers Australia, Canberra and Leander.
On June 16th, she arrived in Gourock on the banks of the Clyde River, the river into which she was launched. The ships deposited 14,000 Australian troops here while the Queen lay at anchor for nearly a fortnight before receiving orders to travel to Singapore. When she arrived here on August 5th after her long journey, she was placed into dry dock. Her stern and bow hung out over the ends of the facility, but work was quick. She was repainted again, her hull scraped and a new mine sweeping devise added. It was a paravane, and consisted of two torpedo shaped objects that were towed from the bow. They would slice through the anchor lines of mines, and the mines would then surface and could be destroyed by the guns which were also added to her decks.
After her refit, she again sailed for Sydney and collected more troops. Between then and December 1941, she ferried troops between Australia and the Middle East where they were transferred to smaller ships, the Eastern Indian Ocean being deemed too dangerous for the Queen. Finally, she was returned to the Atlantic after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the Pacific Fleet.
The Grey Ghost, as she was dubbed for arriving and then leaving quickly and without announcement arrived in New York and was quickly refitted once more, and had her troop capacities increased to 8500. She was also added with more guns. Ten 40mm guns were added on five double mounts, 24 single barrel 20mm guns were added to the upper superstructure and 6 3 inch high flow angle guns were added, 2 to the forward well deck and 4 to the fan tail. Also added were 4 2 inch antiaircraft rocket launchers near the aft most funnel.
On February 17th 1942, Queen Mary loaded with 8398 troops left port and steamed to Australia via Rio, Cape Town and Fremantle. Because of Nazi saboteurs getting a hold of the Queen Mary, her orders were often changed at sea. Adolf Hitler alledgedly offered $250,000 to any sea captain who could sink Queen Mary. Because of this, once the Queen anchored off Florida, 23 miles from land, and was refuled by 2 6,000 tonne tankers that gave her fuel and much needed supplies while Navy cruisers circled her.
Axis spied were everywhere, and many tried their best to obtain information about the location of the Queen Mary. Once, she was refueling in Rio de Janeiro when an Axis spy watching from a hill near by reported it to submarines in the area. When the captain of the Queen heard about this, he changed the schedualed sailing time of the Queen, making it several hours earlier. This saved the Queen, but proved fatal for a tanker. The tanker, leaving at the Queen's original sailing time was torpedoed and sunk. The captain, who mustn't have been very good at recognising ships, reported back to his superiors that he had just sunk the Queen Mary. Off the coast of Brazil, the radio opperator heard a Japanese radio frequency jubulently announcing the Queen Mary's demise. He ran to the bridge and told the captain that he had overheard this report, and told him that apparently they had been sunk and all 15,000 troops (after a refit) on board had drowned, to which the captain replied "How interesting, but don't tell the boys, they'll get upset."
On October 2nd, 1942, came Queen Mary's darkest day. As she approached the coast of Scotland having come across the Atlantic, she was met by her naval escourts which included several destroyers and a small antiaircraft cruiser, HMS Curacoa (Ker-a-sow). Queen Mary was zig-zagging, as was standard war time practise for troopers in waters known to have U-Boats. Because the Curacoa was much slower than the Queen, she was converging on a straight course to keep up. The two ships came perilously close to each other quite a few times until the inevitable happened. Queen Mary, travelling at over 28 knots and packed with 15,000 troops cut right through the Curacoa 150 feet from her stern. The stern sank quickly, followed 5 minutes later by the bow. Of the 432 people aboard the Curacoa, only 101 survived. Sadly though, Queen Mary couldn’t even stop to help those thrashing about in the water; the threat of a U-Boat attack was far too high to risk it. Queen Mary moved on at half speed while other ships rushed to the aid of the Curacoa’s crew. An inspection showed that Queen Mary’s bow was taking water, but her collision bulkhead held and was able to reach port. Temporary repairs were made by pouring cement into the hole before steaming off to Boston where she was fully repaired.
At war’s end, Queen Mary retained her troop ship status, but was this time taking them home. She was also took some 22,000 war brides and their children home. Over the course of the war, she had taken 800,000 troops 600,000 miles, and aside from the Curacoa, never had a major accident. Her guns were never fired in anger, and infact she never once saw an enemy ship or was threatened by one. On September 27th, 1946, she docked at Southampton and was officially released from war duties. In his memoirs, Winston Churchill said that with the aid of the two Queens, they probably clipped several months off the war. |
