GIANT TRANSPORTS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21756, 4 July 1945, Page 3

GIANT TRANSPORTS

QUEEN SHIP SAGA

r WARTIME PARTNERSHIP (9 a.m.) NEW YORK. July 3. Continuing the saga of the Queen ships. Captain C. M. Ford, at a press conference held in the lounge of the Queen Elizabeth, explained that the wartime partnership of the Queens began in the spring of 1941. when the Queen Elizabeth sailed from New York to Singapore for fitting out in readiness to join the Queen Mary, the Mauretania and other transports carrying New Zealand and Australian troops to Suez. The vessels left Sydney at the beginning of April, the Queen Elizabeth making what was, in effect, her first vovage as a passenger-carrying liner-. They carried many thousands of troops the majority reinforcing the British forces in the Middle East. When japan entered- th,e war the Queens were in North American waters undergoing one of thenperiodic overhauls. Three days after the fall of Singapore the Queen Mary left Boston for Sydney with 8200 American troops .aboard. The Queen Elizabeth followed three weeks later with 8000 Americans.

Captain Ford hoped the Queen Elizabeth would take the Blue Riband from the Queen Mary, as the Queen Elizabeth was never extended beyond a comfortable 284 knots. He said the most thrilling moment of his command of the, Queen Elizabeth was when he was able to make his entry into New York Harbour after a long series of entries which were secret, “with the exception of 2,000,000 people peering at us through their office windows.”