LINER QUEEN MARY’S WAR RECORD

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 228, 23 June 1945, Page 7

LINER QUEEN MARY’S WAR RECORD

Many Atlantic Crossings NOT ONE U-BOAT SIGHTED OR GUN FIRED (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received June 22, 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, June 21. The liner Queen Mary, in GO wartime Atlantic crossings of which 59 were without convoy due to the vessel’s speed of 28 knots, never sighted a submarine or fired her guns against the enemy, according to the liner’s captain, Commodore Sir James Bisset. The ship carried about 600,000 troops, including 500,000 Americans. Mr. Churchill was three times a passenger. Sir James described him as a most pleasant travelling companion, somewhat impatient at times. All the Queen Mary’s armament was removed a month ago. It will take six months after the war to fit the liner for passenger service. The captain said the liner probably changed the course of the war in 1942 when she dashed round Africa and delivered 11,000 fresh troops to the reeling Eighth Army in time for tile El Alamein break-through. While the Queen Mary was carrying the first contingent of American troops across the Pacific to help defend Australia in 1942, a Japanese radio report in English came in clearly and strongly: “We have just sunk the Queen Mary with all hands. The captain ordered that the announcement be suppressed lest it get round the ship, frightening the troops. Swift Conversion. The Queen Mary was bound for New York when the war broke out. After her arrival she stayed the winter, then went to Sydney, where in a fortnight she was converted to a transport carrying 15,500 troops, with an armament of 60 guns. Then to the spring of 1943, when she began exclusively to carry Americans to Britain, she transported Empire troops to and from Australia, to the Mediterranean theatre, to Singapore and Britain. Captain Bisset, with a grin, described as untrue two previously published stories of the liner’s wartime adventures. One was that late in 1942 she came within sin. of capsizing when struck broadside by a heavy wave; the other concerned’ a time when she ran through a pack of 25 submarines so fast, that they scarcely saw her. Captain Bisset commented that he had never seen weather that could capsize the Queen Mary. If he ran through any submarines, he did not know it, he added. . . The Queen Mary’s record was virtually duplicated by the Queen Elizabeth, which is due to arrive in a few days with American troops. The two vessels steamed nearly 1,000,000 miles.