Hi all,
Last week my wife and I stayed at the Queen Mary and in the WW2 display area I found this cool diorama of the Queen Mary depicting the terrible accident she had with another ship during her wartime service. Thought I'd share some of this interesting history and some of the pics I took.
October 1942 the worst tragedy of the liner's history occured on her last leg of a voyage from the United States to Gourock in Scotland, Queen Mary was met by a small flotilla of Royal Naval vessels assigned to escort the ship across the Irish Sea. The task of guarding the liner from air attack was given to the light cruiser HMS Curacoa (1918). The cruisers maximum speed was 25 knots and her Captain knew the liner would overtake his vessel. He signalled the Captain of the Queen Mary his intention to edge in astern of the liner. Less than two hours later the two ships collided. People aboard the liner felt no more than a bump, but the Curacoa was sliced in half as the liner ploughed through her, and 329 men of the 430 crew were lost. The whole incident was hidden under a veil of secrecy until after the war. The most likely cause was found to be interaction between the two ships, which pulled the cruiser into the liners path.
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