NEVER FIRED HER GUNS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 147, 23 June 1945, Page 7

NEVER FIRED HER GUNS

WAR RECORD OF LINER QUEEN MARY

NEW YORK, June 21

The liner Queen Mary, in 60 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 a passenger three times. 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 that 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 Bth Army in time for the 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. The Queen Mary was bound for New York' when the war broke out. After her arrival she stayed during the winter, and then went to Sydney, where in a fortnight she was converted to a transport carrying 15,500 troops, with an armament of GO guns. Then, in 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 to 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 five inches 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.

WANTED FOR ATLANTIC TRADE

Rec. 9 a.m

LONDON, June 22

Sir Thomas Brockelbank, deputy chairman of the Cunard-White Star Line, claimed that the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth had shortened the war by a year, and could shorten the transition period to normal in another year, if one, or preferably both, returned to the Atlantic trade quickly.

Sir Thomas Brockelbank said: "Such an enormous weight of passenger traffic is waiting to cross the Atlantic from both sides that unless we begin quickly we will lag behind competitors."

The Queen Elizabeth, if freed in a month, could be ready for her official maiden voyage in six months, he said. The Queen Elizabeth is now lying at the Clyde and is leaving on June 24 with 15,000 Americans under reverse lend-lease on her thirty-sixth round trip across the Atlantic. She has carried 700,000 troops and covered 500,000 miles as a war transport. . ■ ■ .