'Queen Mary': The sad story of the 'Titanic' that fought against the Nazis and that today rots in a port in California

88 years ago, in 1934, when it was thrown from the River Clyde in Scotland, the creature was called to rule the oceans.

Ocean liners had lived through a golden age between the end of the 19th century and the First World War, among other causes due to European emigration to America, but it was not until the interwar period that the competition between shipping companies to exhibit maritime muscle was not going to reach its zenith.

That is why the construction of the RMS

named after Queen Mary, grandmother of the current British sovereign, Elizabeth II, had attracted so much attention.

It had the largest hull known to date, exceeding 300 meters in length, 12 decks and capacity for 2,139 passengers and 1,101 crew, as well as an imposing presence that led a BBC broadcaster, George Blake, to equate his first navigation with that of a "great white cliff, enormous and overwhelming".

Cunard, her operator, wanted to abandon her usual classicism and consecrate

her interior design to

But what really encouraged the launch of the ship was to make her the fastest in the world and, above all, superior to her French rival, the SS

in a fight that betrayed a national itch.

Cocktail bar on the Queen Mary where passengers would gather for aperitif. George Rinhart (Corbis via Getty Images)

The Queen Mary in New York before embarking on her final voyage. Express (Getty Images)

The

had swimming pools, tennis courts, libraries and nurseries, among other services.

An abundance that at the time was shared by a handful of ships, and which allowed it to issue tickets to leading politicians and Hollywood icons such as Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Elisabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Buster Keaton or Fred Astaire.

They were joined, in the lower two classes, by well-to-do passengers who could afford a break of a couple of weeks in Europe, travelers who wanted to breathe fresh air in the new world, and emigrants who left for America in search of a new life.

The fight for the maritime title had the most prestigious chapter for shipping companies in the connection between the British and American coasts.

For that reason, since her maiden voyage in May 1936, the British ship's goal was the

, an unofficial decoration awarded to the ship that crossed the Atlantic the fastest, then held by the SS

The

which, like the

joined Southampton and New York, he did not have to wait long to get hold of it.

He achieved it in August of that same year with a west-east crossing in which his 16 steam turbines, which together had a power of 160,000 horsepower, reached an average speed of over 30 knots (57 kilometers per hour). .

The journey was completed in four days and 27 minutes.

A year later, the Frenchman regained the distinction, but in 1938 he returned to

who kept it until 1952, thanks to a journey that reduced the four days by two hours and 12 minutes.

With the arrival of the Second World War, however, the ship had to abandon luxury and undertake a task of enormous importance.

After her hull and other structures were painted navy gray — prompting dry British humor to dub her the

ghost — she served as a means of transport for Australian and New Zealand soldiers to the UK.

She managed to get 15,000 men on board in a single trip and during the war she was one of the ships that, due to her great speed, more easily escaped enemy submarines.

The Nazis, in fact, put a price on her head.

She was the means chosen to displace the prime minister, Winston Churchill, hidden in the passenger list with nicknames such as

(guardian colonel).

Paradoxically, it was the obligation of not stopping the course to avoid attacks from the water that prevented him from saving a few lives in one of the greatest tragedies in the British rear.

In 1942, off the coast of Derry (Northern Ireland), the controls of the Royal Navy light cruiser HMS

did not communicate correctly with those of the

the trajectories of both ended up coinciding and the latter rammed and split in two to the first.

Those on board saw more than 300 comrades drown, in an event that was kept secret until the end of the war.

The Duke of Cambridge, the Duchess of Devonshire and the Marquess of Crewe aboard the Queen Mary.PA Images (PA Images via Getty Images)

The last forty were also the years in which ocean liners slowly began to close their golden age.

The development of jet aviation had been accelerated for military reasons during the war, and by 1952 cities as far apart as London and Johannesburg (more than 9,000 kilometers apart) had been connected by air (although the first flight between the two cities required 24 hours and five stops).

Milestones like this underpinned the decline of ocean liners.

Glamour, which in previous decades had created a new mythology around ocean liners, was also carried away by airplanes.

In 1965, the entire Cunard fleet closed at a loss.

This meant that two years later, after ruling out several offers, the shipping company sold the ship for 1.2 million pounds at the time (about 20 million euros today) to the city of Long Beach, California, which made it unusable for the displacement.

Its new managers got rid of a large part of the motor elements of the transatlantic, turned it into a theme park and proposed a system of exploitation with multiple concessionaires – one for a museum about the French marine biologist and researcher Jacques Cousteau, another that offered hotel accommodation and a third for the gastronomic offer, all coexisting inside with the city itself, organizer of guided tours– which did not manage to work.

Actress Elizabeth Taylor photographed on the Queen Mary with her dogs in her arms in 1947. Keystone (Getty Images)

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor at the Queen Mary.PA Images (PA Images via Getty Images)

It was then that a movement took place that would end with Disney in charge of the ship.

Jack Wrather, a millionaire with fond memories of his transatlantic voyages, signed a long-term concession to operate the ship, but in 1988, shortly after his death, Disney bought his properties—because of a vested interest in the Disneyland Hotel in California, of which Wrather had been the owner – in a package that included the management of the stranded ship.

Its financial viability, however, remained elusive, especially after the entertainment giant gave up an adjacent theme park that was planning to include the

as one of its features.

Disney finally abandoned its management in 1992, and the ship closed its doors to visitors.

Since then it has changed managers several times, with the same result in all cases: lack of profitability and deterioration of its structures.

Since the arrival of covid-19, it has been closed, and last year, the city itself assumed its reins due to the bankruptcy of the previous managers.

The

reported in February that the local corporation will allocate five million dollars (about 4.5 million euros) throughout 2022 to prevent its flooding.

With this investment, the aim is to delay the confrontation with much greater difficulty: there are studies, cited by the newspaper, which since 2017 estimate a much higher amount, 289 million dollars (about 264 million euros), the cost of a complete update of the boat.

The city government team came to put on the table the possibility of sinking it, although the previous rejection by the citizens that the ship could leave the coast of the city to settle in a new location suggests that ending it it is not a short-term option.

It would suffice that, just as it dodged enemy sabotage attempts at sea,

American soldiers dining in the ship's lavish dining room during World War II, when the Queen Mary was transporting troops. Haywood Magee (Getty Images)