RMS Queen Mary
Cunard-White Star · 1936 · Ship Guide
Overview
RMS Queen Mary was built at Clydebank for Cunard’s premier North Atlantic service and entered service in 1936. She became one of the defining express liners of the era—known for sustained high-speed crossings, a long Blue Riband reputation, and a wartime career as a major troopship before returning to peacetime passenger service.
This page is written as a reference doorway: it summarizes widely documented facts, flags uncertainty where it exists, and avoids turning later narrative into “record” without evidence.
Key Facts
Note on figures: capacities, crew totals, and some engineering details vary by refit, wartime configuration, and source. This guide favors institutional documentation (e.g., nomination forms, operator materials, reputable scholarship) for exact numbers.
Design & Construction (Context)
Queen Mary emerged from an interwar “express liner” race in which speed, national prestige, and shipbuilding capability mattered in public and commercial terms. Built as Hull No. 534 at John Brown’s Clydebank yard, her construction paused during the early 1930s economic crisis and resumed after the Cunard–White Star merger, resulting in the two-ship “Queens” concept that defined the company’s postwar transatlantic service.
Service History (Summary)
Entering service in 1936, Queen Mary quickly established a reputation for fast crossings and reliability. She won the Blue Riband in 1936, lost it in 1937, and regained it in 1938—retaining the title until 1952. In broad outline, her peacetime career divides into the prewar express years (1936–1939), an intense wartime troopship period, and a long postwar return to transatlantic service alongside RMS Queen Elizabeth.
Wartime Service (High-level)
During World War II, Queen Mary served as a troopship (often described as the “Grey Ghost” in later popular memory), carrying large numbers of personnel on long-distance runs. One widely cited wartime passage set a record for the number of people carried on a single vessel at one time—an example of a claim that is common in secondary retellings and should be pinned to the strongest available documentation when quoted with exact totals.
Retirement & Long Beach (Summary)
By the 1960s, the economics of the North Atlantic passenger trade shifted sharply in the jet age. Cunard retired Queen Mary in 1967. She departed Southampton for the last time on October 31, 1967 and arrived in Long Beach on December 9, 1967, where she was converted into a permanently moored attraction and hotel.
Interpretive Notes
Queen Mary lives in two overlapping reputations: (1) the documented express liner and troopship record, and (2) a large modern tourism narrative (including “haunted ship” folklore and pop-culture appearances). Ocean Liner Curator treats the second category carefully: it may be culturally interesting, but it is not automatically historical evidence.
When a claim materially changes interpretation—speed records, troopship capacities, design decisions, or “first/last” superlatives—treat it as a hypothesis to verify against high-grade sources (builder records, institutional surveys, nomination forms, serious scholarship) rather than repetition.
Evidence-first ship guideSources (Selected)
This list is intentionally conservative.