RMS Queen Elizabeth: История океанского лайнера

Ocean liner (1938–1968)
the Cunard Line oceanliner launched in 1939

RMS Queen Elizabeth was an ocean liner operated by Cunard Line. In tandem with both ships provided a weekly luxury liner service between Southampton in the United Kingdom and New York City in the United States, via Cherbourg in France. Whilst being constructed in the mid 1930s by John Brown and Company at Clydebank, Scotland, the build was known as Hull 552. Hull 552 was launched on 27 September 1938 and named in honour of Queen Elizabeth, the wife of King George VI. With a design that improved upon that of , Queen Elizabeth was slightly larger being 12 feet longer than her sister ship, She was the largest passenger liner ever built at that time and for 56 years thereafter. She entered service in March 1940 as a troopship in the Second World War, and it was not until October 1946 that she made her first commercial voyage in her intended role as an ocean liner. With the decline in popularity of the transatlantic route, both ships were replaced by the smaller, more economical Queen Elizabeth 2, which made her maiden voyage in 1969. Queen Mary was retired from service on 9 December 1967, and sold to the city of Long Beach, California. Queen Elizabeth was retired after her final crossing to New York, on 8 December 1968. She was moved to Port Everglades, Florida, and converted to a tourist attraction, which opened in February 1969. The business was unsuccessful, and closed in August 1970. Finally, Queen Elizabeth was sold to Hong Kong businessman Tung Chao Yung, who intended to convert her into a floating university cruise ship called Seawise University. In 1972, whilst she was undergoing refurbishment in Hong Kong harbour, a fire broke out aboard under unexplained circumstances, and the ship was capsized by the water used to fight the fire. The following year the wreck was deemed an obstruction to shipping in the area, and in 1974 and 1975 was partially scrapped on site.

On the day RMS Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage, Cunard's chairman, Sir Percy Bates, informed his ship designers, headed by George Paterson, that it was time to start designing the planned second ship. The official contract between Cunard and government financiers was signed on 6 October 1936. The new ship improved upon the design of Queen Mary with sufficient changes, including a reduction in the number of boilers to twelve instead of Queen Mary twenty four, that the designers could discard one funnel and increase deck, cargo and passenger space. The two funnels were self supporting and braced internally to give a cleaner looking appearance. With the forward well deck omitted, a more refined hull shape was achieved, and a sharper, raked bow was added for a third bow anchor point. The interiors were designed by a team of artists headed by the architect George Grey Wornum. The staircases, foyers and entrances were constructed by H. H. Martyn & Co. using these designs. Cunard's plan was for the ship to be launched in September 1938, with fitting out intended to be complete for the ship to enter service in the spring of 1940. The ship was then docked for fitting out. then First Lord of the Admiralty, ordering the ship to leave Clydeside as soon as possible and "to keep away from the British Isles as long as the order was in force".

At the start of the Second World War, it was decided that Queen Elizabeth was so vital to the war effort that she must not have her movements tracked by German spies operating in the Clydebank area. An elaborate ruse suggested to any German observers that she would sail to Southampton to complete her fitting out. By the beginning of March 1940, Queen Elizabeth was ready for her secret voyage. The Cunard colours were painted over with battleship grey, and on the morning of 3 March, the ship quietly left her moorings in the Clyde and proceeded out of the river to sail further down the coast, where she was met by a King's Messenger, In mid March, carrying 8,000 American soldiers, Queen Elizabeth began a 7,700 mile voyage from San Francisco to Sydney, Australia. Initially she carried Australian troops to theatres of operation in Asia and Africa. After 1942, the two Queens were relocated to the North Atlantic for the transportation of American troops to Europe. during the war. Their high speeds allowed them to outrun hazards, principally German U boats, usually allowing them to travel outside a convoy. The commander, Horst Wilhelm Kessler, heard a detonation In reality, one of the torpedoes detonated prematurely and the Queen Elizabeth was unharmed. During her war service as a troopship, Queen Elizabeth carried more than 750,000 troops, and she also sailed some 500000 mile (804670 km). Queen Elizabeths engines were capable of driving her to speeds of over 32 knots. Despite specifications similar to those of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth never held the Blue Riband, for Cunard White Star chairman Sir Percy Bates asked that the two ships do not try to compete against each other. On 29 July 1959, she was in a collision with the American freighter American Hunter in foggy conditions in New York Harbor and was holed above the waterline. Together with Queen Mary and in competition with the American liners and , Queen Elizabeth dominated the transatlantic passenger trade until their fortunes began to decline with the advent of the faster and more economical jet airliner in the late 1950s. However, the strategy did not prove successful, owing to the ship's deep draught, which prevented her from entering various island ports, her width, which prevented her from using the Panama Canal, and also her high fuel costs. Cunard retired Queen Mary in 1967 and Queen Elizabeth completed her final Atlantic crossing to New York on 5 November 1968. The vessel was sold at auction in 1970 to Hong Kong tycoon Tung Chao Yung. The fact that C. Y. Tung had acquired the vessel for $3.5 million, and had insured it for $8 million, led some to speculate that the inferno was part of a fraud to collect on the insurance claim. Others speculated that the fires were the result of a conflict between Tung, a Chinese Nationalist, and Communist dominated ship construction unions. The ship was destroyed by the fire, and the water sprayed on her by fireboats caused the burnt wreck to sink in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour. The vessel was finally declared a shipping hazard and dismantled for scrap between December 1974 and 1975. Portions of the hull that were not salvaged were left at the bottom of the bay. The keel, boilers and engines remained at the bottom of the harbour, and the area was marked as "Foul" on local sea charts, warning ships not to try to anchor there. It is estimated that around 40–50% of the wreck was still on the seabed. In the late 1990s, the last remains of the wreck were buried during land reclamation for the construction of Container Terminal 9. After the fire, Tung had one of the liner's anchors and the metal letters "Q" and "E" from the name on the bow placed in front of the office building at Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California, which had been intended as the headquarters of the Seawise University venture; they later went on display with commemorative plaques in the lobby of Wall Street Plaza, 88 Pine Street, New York City. Two of the ship's fire warning system brass plaques were recovered by a dredger, and were displayed at The Aberdeen Boat Club in Hong Kong in an exhibit about the ship. The charred remnants of her last ensign were cut from the flagpole and framed in 1972, and still adorn the wall of the officers' mess of marine police HQ in Hong Kong. Parker Pen Company produced a special edition of 5,000 pens made from material recovered from the wreck, each in a presentation box; today these are highly collectible. Following the demise of Queen Elizabeth, the largest passenger ship in active service became the 66,343 GRT , which was longer but with less tonnage than the Cunard liner. Queen Elizabeth held the record of largest passenger ship ever built until the 101,353 GT Carnival Sunshine (now the Carnival Sunshine) captured the record in 1996. To date, Queen Elizabeth still holds the record as the largest passenger ship for the longest time of 56 years.

In 1959, the ship made an appearance in the British satirical comedy film The Mouse That Roared, starring Peter Sellers and Jean Seberg. While a troupe of invading men from "Grand Fenwick", a fictional European micro nation, cross the Atlantic to 'war' with the United States, they meet and pass the far larger Queen Elizabeth, and learn that the port of New York is closed due to an air raid drill. Ian Fleming set the climax to his 1956 James Bond novel Diamonds Are Forever on Queen Elizabeth. The 1971 film version starring Connery used the P&O liner SS Canberra for the sequence. The wreck was featured in the 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, as a covert headquarters for MI6.