![long beach war of the worlds 1938 long beach war of the worlds 1938](https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events2/banners/a2868bd0-d18b-11ee-917b-25338a524458-rimg-w1200-h675-gmir.jpg)
![long beach war of the worlds 1938 long beach war of the worlds 1938](https://www.posterposse.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/War-of-the-Worlds.jpg)
It also served to transport Winston Churchill, hidden among the passenger list with various pseudonyms including Colonel Warden. The Nazi regime was so incensed it put a price on the Queen Mary’s head. On one voyage alone, 15,000 soldiers were ferried across the world and throughout the war, due to its speed, it was able to easily escape the attentions of German U-boats. Repainted in navy gray – leading her to be nicknamed the “Grey Ghost” – the Queen Mary became a transport ship carrying troops from Australia and New Zealand to Britain. With the outbreak of World War II, the Queen Mary abandoned her luxurious and gentlemanly pursuit of seafaring records to take on a task of much greater importance. A year later the Normandie would beat that time again, but in 1938 the Queen Mary regained the Blue Riband with a voyage that knocked two hours and 12 minutes off the four-day voyage and held it until 1952, when the United States beat her time. The voyage was completed in four days and 27 minutes. In August of the same year, on an east-west crossing, the ship’s 16 turbines, which emitted an output of 160,000 horsepower, reached an average speed of 30 knots (35mph). The Queen Mary, which like the Titanic ran between Southampton and New York, didn’t take long to relieve France of the honor. As such, from its inaugural voyage in May 1936, the goal of the British liner was the Blue Riband, an unofficial award bestowed on the ship that records the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing and which at the time was held by the SS Normandie. The connection between the British and US coasts heralded the most prestigious chapter in the tussle for the maritime crown. Among other passengers, in second and third class, were middle-class American families who could afford a couple of weeks’ vacation in Europe, Europeans who wanted to breathe the fresh air of the New World and those emigrating to the United States in search of a new life. The vessel’s abundance was matched at the time by only a handful of other ships and among its passengers were world leaders and politicians, royalty and Hollywood stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Buster Keaton and Fred Astaire. The Queen Mary had swimming pools, tennis courts, libraries and kindergartens, among other services.
![long beach war of the worlds 1938 long beach war of the worlds 1938](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qwvc2su69Is/VfLAj21avoI/AAAAAAAAESU/FuH1qpjz_S4/s1600/Detail_Classics_Illustrated_The_War_Of_The_Worlds_No_124_Cover.jpg)
George Rinhart (Corbis via Getty Images) The Queen Mary leaving New York on her final voyage. The cocktail bar aboard the luxurious vessel. But the Queen Mary’s primary goal was national pride: at a time when nations were vying for prestige on the open sea, the Queen Mary was the fastest vessel ever launched and superior to its closest rival, the French ship SS Normandie. BBC radio announcer George Blake, present at the launch, described the ship as a “great white cliff, huge and overwhelming.” Cunard-White Star, the shipping line that commissioned the Queen Mary, abandoned its standard classicism and devoted its interior design to art deco. The vessel had the biggest hull ever seen, over 300 meters in length, 12 decks and capacity for 2,139 passengers and 1,101 crew. That is why the construction of the Queen Mary, completed in 1934 and named in honor of the wife of George V and the grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II, Mary of Teck, attracted so much attention. Ocean liners had enjoyed a golden age between the late 19th century and the outbreak of the First World War, among other reasons due to emigration to the United States, but it wasn’t until the inter-war period that the competition between shipping lines to flex their maritime muscles reached its zenith. Eighty-eight years ago, when it was launched from the Clyde River in Scotland, the RMS Queen Mary was destined to rule the oceans.