Acton, CA - Long Beach: The Queen and the Ghost

THE QUEEN MARY

Throughout out stay on the Queen Mary the music from the 40’s was playing. I could listen to Glenn Miller for hours and here his band was playing, along with others of the era.

I stand at your gate and the song that I sing is of moonlight.

I stand and I wait for the touch of your hand in the June night.

The roses are sighing a Moonlight Serenade.

(Every time it rains, it rains) Pennies from heaven

(Don't cha know each cloud contains) Pennies from heaven?

(You'll find you fortune fallin') All over town

(Be sure that your umbrella) Is upside down

The Queen Mary was conceived as the epitome of luxury back in December of 1930 in Scotland but, as the Depression worsened, the Cunard line could not get financing for the ship. One year later, work was stopped and Cunard applied to the British Government for a loan to complete the ship. Faced with the prospect of thousands of shipbuilders laid off, it agreed to the loan and not only was the Queen Mary built but also its sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth. (Sounds like a familiar story.)

Legend has it that Cunard had planned to name the ship the ‘Victoria’ since all of the names of their ships ended in ‘ia’ (like Lusitania) but when company representatives asked the King if they could name the ocean liner after Britain’s ‘greatest queen’, he said that his wife, Queen Mary, would be delighted. Oops. And, Cunard had no other choice than to name it the Queen Mary. All of the china, all of the silver, hundred’s of chairs, all of the curtains and many paintings, etc had to be scrapped because they had the wrong name on them. Finally, the ship was finished and on its maiden voyage, steamed into New York in 1938.

Among facilities available on board Queen Mary, the liner featured 700’ long hallways, two indoor swimming pools (without diving boards since diving in rough seas might be dangerous), beauty salons, libraries, and children's nurseries for all three classes, a music studio and lecture hall, telephone connectivity to anywhere in the world, outdoor paddle tennis courts, and dog kennels. The largest room was the first class dining room which was also the largest room ever built in a ship.

It was three stories in height, held 815 for dinner and had a huge marquetry map of the Atlantic showing the positions of the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth as they were crossing the ocean.

You could even get a full body x-ray in first class until 1950 when they realized that Madame Curie had actually died of radiation poisoning. It was also the first ship to use that new miracle material: plastic although it was called bakelite then. On our tour we saw a door handle that had been unscrewed - obviously someone wanted that piece of bakelite from the Queen Mary really badly. Who carries a Phillips head screwdriver onto the Queen Mary?

Ships horns are called ‘hooters’ in Britain and we got to hear the hooters go off. I’d make a joke here but this is a family blog. The first class had a beautiful shopping area, called Picadilly Circus. Here’s a view of of it from the stairs leading up to this deck where the shops were. There was a fine men’s haberdashery but no women’s clothing stores - imagine selling 2 of the same dress to 2 different passengers!

Third class passengers had only 2 glassed-in cabinets in their lounge from where they could order. The stewards would bring it to them from the ship’s storage. This must have been the origin of ‘window shopping.’

On the Queen Mary’s 143rd passage of the Atlantic, the message came to the captain that Great Britain was at war and he was to take evasive measures. They painted over the windows, removed all outside lighting and began a zig-zag pattern for the rest of the voyage back to England. They repeated this on the return voyage to the US carrying 2320 Americans home where the ship along with the Queen Elizabeth were refitted for war. At one point they almost decided to make it into a carrier but decided instead to retrofit it into a troop carrier. Both the Queen Elizabeth and another ship, the Normandie, also were retrofitted. In the course of the retrofit, the Normandie, now named the Lafayette caught fire in 1942 and sank in New York harbor. The Queen Elizabeth eventually carried more than 750,000 troops during the war.

GREY GHOST

In New York anything of value, all of the china, silver, curtains, mirrors, pictures, brass, etc. were removed from the ship and put into storage. Gunnery was added and a gunnery crew was added to the roster. Because the Queen Mary was so fast, it glided as swiftly and as silently as a ‘graveyard ghost’ through the seas with its human cargo. Hence it received its nickname, The Grey Ghost. All in all, it made 72 crossings and took 800,000 soldiers to the battlefronts in Europe. It has been estimated that without the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth the war would have lasted 2 years longer.

Obviously, the ship was packed to the gills. The Queen Mary set a record for the most people on a single ship: 16,683. And, remember this is a ship designed to carry 2400 passengers and 1100 crew. Of course, you are asking about the lifeboats, and, yep, they had lifeboats for 3500, not 16,683. The room we stayed in was fine for 2 but was retrofitted with 6- layer high bunks to hold 15. Men slept in the drained pools, they slept 4 abreast on the Sun and Promenade decks with only their blanket below them. One old soldier told our guide that you had to watch your blanket like a hawk. Another one told him that the bunks were so tight that to turn over, you had to get up, turn and slide back in a different way.

Men slept in shifts, 8 hours in and 16 hours out while others took their turn sleeping in your bunk. Out on the deck all you could do was to mill around. But, of course, they were carefully choreographed since the ship had to be carefully balanced. Each soldier had his place to sleep, his place to eat and his place to stand and only at certain times, could they move to the next place. There was no water for showers and each man carried only 1/2 gallon for washing.

But the Queen had her speed in her favor. She was the fastest ship and could outrace the submarines which were chasing her. Hitler offered a $250,000 reward for any captain who could sink her but none could catch up to her. She never took the same route twice and always zig-zagged. Neither the Queen Elizabeth nor the Queen Mary every had a convoy or an escort because they were so fast. In the end, the Queen Mary never fired a shot and never a shot touched her. (As another sidelight: the Queen Mary never, in all her voyages, whether in war or in peace, never had to use her lifeboats.)

Winston Churchill traveled on the Queen Mary several times under the name of Colonel Warden. Here on the Queen Mary he wrote his ‘Finest Hour’ speech which I think was one of his finest speeches. He insisted that his lifeboat be fitted with a machine gun so that he could resist to the end.

The ships carried troops to Europe for the war, carried POW’s back to the US and finally, at the end of the war the ships began a new life as a transport for war brides and their children back to the US. Making 13 trips for this purpose (what in the world were our soldiers and sailors doing in England?), the conditions were much better and they were not nearly so crowded.

The Queen Mary was then retrofitted back to being a passenger liner and, with the Queen Elizabeth, dominated the Atlantic passage for the rest of the 40’s and 50’s. However, with the coming of transatlantic flight, both ships saw their passenger lists fall and sometimes, there were more crew than passenger.

Finally Cunard retired the Queen Mary and bids were open for her. The Japanese wanted her for scrap metal but Long Beach wanted her as a major attraction. And that is where she is today. They stripped so much metal off of her though that there was a potential ballast problem so they filled her empty fuel tanks with harbor mud to keep her steady.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time on the Queen Mary. Just being on the ship amidst all that splendor and history was spectacular and staying overnight made it even more special.

One last thing, we were intrigued by the sink in our room. It was so low that I had to bend over to wash my hands. We also noticed this railing on the deck. The original railing is the lower railing. Because people have gotten taller over the last 50 years, they had to add another taller railing. That’s why the sink is about 10” too low also, it was built for people in the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Acton, CA - Long Beach: Down to the Sea in Ships

THE TRIP INTO LONG BEACH

We’re heading on down to Long Beach, 74 miles away, today to stay overnight on the Queen Mary, tour it and visit the Long Beach Aquarium. Last summer, I had read that Long Beach had not only redone its harbor area after the Naval base closed years ago but had opened these two as prime attractions here. We checked and, lo and behold, there is an RV campground on the harbor also but they require 2 months minimum stay and we turned it down. We have now checked this campground out, realized that we could fill 2 months in the LA area and might stay there next year. However, one needs to make a reservation a year in advance AND one must also drive ones motor home into the Long Beach area. Hmmm. Might make me think twice about this.

Meanwhile, we headed into town. We have a new GPS, a Garmin, which also has traffic updates. As we were heading south on Interstate 405, we heard an unfamiliar beep, saw a little drawing of two cars in red and heard the dulcet tones of the GPS telling us that there was a slowdown ahead and it was calculating a new route for us to avoid it. Gulp, we said, do we trust this thing? Well, took a chance and exited. Soon we were winding through streets up and down the canyons, but we were moving steady and now and then we could glimpse the freeway which was now a huge parking lot. Giggling in glee, we moved on and soon the GPS directed us back to the freeway just beyond the bottleneck, and we scooted along! Ain't new technology great? (at least when it works).

The Long Beach is not only the 2nd busiest container port in the US but it is also the 5th busiest in the world. Nearly 1/2 of all manufactured goods that enter and leave the US pass through this bay. Mountains and mountains of containers are piled there waiting to be loaded on to ships or onto trucks. As we turned south on the interstate toward the port of Long Beach where the Queen Mary is moored, we noticed that the truck traffic had increased considerably, on both sides of the highway. The port facility is like a minuet with trucks, ships and containers all moving in their patterened steps to get the goods where they are supposed to go. Some goods are coming into the states and some good are leaving. And, cranes are everywhere.

We found the Queen Mary, parked, ‘boarded’, got our room and our tour tickets and headed out to the Aquarium which we planned to see in the afternoon. But first, I had to get a picture of the Long Beach skyline from our porthole. A little blurry but it’s through 1” safety glass that was installed in 1936 and has been across the ocean numerous times.

THE AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC

The Aquarium of the Pacific is quite a marvelous aquarium. It has a collection of over 11,000 animals and three major galleries: sunny Southern California and the Baja, the frigid waters of the Northern Pacific and the colorful reefs of the South Pacific. However the theme was evident in every exhibit: conservation and stewardship. The Arctic/Antarctic exhibit explained results of global warming (gleciers are melting and water levels are rising), one exhibit talked about how the oceans are being polluted by everything that flows into them from our rivers, another exhibit has displays on water usage and conservation and there were other exhibits in the same vein.

The shark feeding exhibit reiterated this theme by telling us that humans are more dangerous to sharks than sharks are to humans. Sharks are often victims of ‘finning’ where they are caught, definned and thrown back into the ocean to die.

One type of exhibit the Aquarium had that I haven’t seen before is the myriad of touching areas. In one were many jellyfish that you could touch, another one had rays that you could touch, in the Lorikeet forest you were able to purchase some sugar water to tempt the Lorikeets to perch on your arms.

The rays were so smooth, like velvet while the jellies were like touching very soft jelly (natch).

We met Lola the Cocatoo, who can both ask and answer the question: ‘What kind of bird are you?’ ‘Cocatoo’ she says. The trainer told us that cocatoos were the most ‘gotten rid of pet’ since they live to be 100 but are like a 4-year old: they need attention. Leave one alone for very long and your curtains will be shredded.

We saw the sea lion show where Parker ran through his tricks and then waved good-bye to us.

Well, isn’t it a bit cruel to teach tricks to sea lions as if they’re in a circus? Well, this keeps them active both physically and mentally, just like humans.

The corals were colorful and constantly moving in the water.

I was interested to learn that the Aquarium withdrew its advertising from the Rush Limbaugh show on March 8 after his comments about Sandra Fluke who testified in Congress.

Fun and educational place to visit but it was closing and we were hungry. We walked over to Islands, a nearby restaurant where we could order burgers and fries - ENDLESS FRIES - that caught our eye. And, they had sweet potatoe fries - very good. Well, I couldn’t order a regular burger - I had the veggie burger. If I’m going to sin with endless fries, I’ve got to make up for it somehow.

How can a salad have 1200 calories? You think you’re eating something good and you get blindsided like this.

Afterwards we walked back over to the Queen Mary. As we crossed the bridge, we could see her all 'dressed up'.

We showered and usually I don’t talk about our showers but this was something special. In the shower we had a 2 faucet handles for cold and hot salt water (though these had been de-commissioned) and a button for a steward and one for a stewardess. We were told in our tours the next day that this was if a passenger wanted to be dried off after a shower. Huh? Are you telling me that I could push the button for a steward? What kind of ship was this anyway? No, actually, I’m not kidding about the use of the buttons. Press the button and a light would light up ourside your room depending upon who you wanted: a steward or a stewardess. Unfortunately, I was deprived of the chance to see if I could summon a steward - the buttons didn’t work anymore.

And, about the bathtub, it was so curved at the bottom that neither Gary nor I could stand upright easily. Death-defying bathtub. We felt like we were in a trough. Imagine standing in one of these tubs during a storm at sea. Luckily they had a handle on the wall to hold on to.

We were also puzzled by the heat ducts. The room was a bit chilly when we returned so we turned these to get some heat in our room. Nope, they didn’t work either. So I called the front desk and Jessica told me that she would call Engineering and they would turn it on. Sure enough, a few minutes later we heard a whoosh and warm air was flowing into our room. Shortly afterwards, an ‘engineer’ came to the door to see it we had heat now.

After our showers, we took the opportunity to walk around the ship and marvel at its design and appointments. Here’s Gary enjoying a cup of coffee.

Here’s are some plants and a mirrow on a stairway landing. And, the hallway where our room is.

Here’s the promenade deck which ran the length of the ship. 4 times around equals a mile. And, the elevator bank.

Note all of the carpeting. This, along with curtains and bedding are not original to the ship. Originally, the ship had wooden floors - much easier to keep clean during rough seas.

Of course, all of these pictures are from the original first class section where a one-way passage cost $1400 in the 1930’s when the ship was commssioned and an average weekly salary was $30. That would be about $14,000 now. Second class passage was $720 while third class passage was $330. Obviously most of the passengers were wealthy and most of the ship was devoted to them. They had approx 1/2 of the ship while the 2nd and 3rd has about 1/4 each. If someone from 2nd and 3rd were visiting a 1st class passenger, they had to leave for meals since they could only eat in their own dining rooms.

Elizabeth Taylor sailed on the Queen 7 times with her 60 pieces of luggage and was the first to bring her dogs into the actual living areas rather than keeping them in the kennel. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor sailed often, Winston Churchill, Clark Gable, Bob Hope, Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, everyone who was anyone sailed on the Queen Mary.

And finally to sleep. We’ve got two tours of the ship tomorrow. You know, this is more than a fancy hotel, it is a piece of history. This was the way to travel across the oceans in the 30’s and 40’s. And, it only took 4 or 5 days. In fact the Queen Mary was the fastest ship afloat for a long time, and it is certainly faster than any cruise ship today.