When Sydney Harbour hosted Queen Elizabeth 2 and Queen Mary 2 in 2007 some watching remembered an earlier wartime event.
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| Cunard's flagship Queen Mary 2 and her younger sister Queen Victoria 2015 (Cunard) |
The annual world voyage of Queen Elizabeth 2 during January to April has become something of a rite of passage, not just for the ship but for the cruise industry. Over more than three and a half decades, QE2 has voyaged out of a chilly New York in January in search of the sun.
Despite - or probably due to - the ship's now "classic" vintage, her reputation as the ultimate cruise ship is seemingly unchallenged by passengers who love her. Yet since 2004, QE2's reign has been challenged from within the Cunard family. The advent of Queen Mary 2 in 2004 astounded the cruise industry in much the same way as her namesake, the original Queen Mary, did some 70 years earlier.
Although identifiably a Cunarder in both appearance and appointment, Queen Mary 2 presents an adaptive advance on Queen Elizabeth 2's successful design. But, at some 150,000 tons - twice the already majestic displacement of QE2 - the new ship also represents a very definite statement that Cunard Line intended her for greater duties. From the outset QM2 assumed the legendary transatlantic express voyage schedule operated by QE2 since 1969. Her entry to service saw the senior Queen semi-retired from flagship status, and diverted to year-round cruising.
In January 2007 we will see the next step in Cunard's ambitions for QM2 - an inaugural world voyage, departing New York for South America, California and Hawaii (virtually a repeat of her early 2006 cruise) before turning her giant bow south for Australia.
On arrival QM2 will be accorded the title of the largest ship ever to enter the waters of Port Jackson - almost 50 per cent greater again compared with current record holder, Sapphire Princess. The visit on February 20, 2007, will be an occasion of considerable public interest, especially when QE2 arrives in Sydney Harbour that evening.
Although the two ships' wakes have crossed on several occasions since 2004, the Sydney Harbour rendezvous with be doubly historic. The sequence of arrival/departure scheduled for February 20 has been nostalgically planned to mark a prior rendezvous - the first and only occasion when two Queens visited Sydney on the same day - 65 years ago on April 9, 1941. That day there was no publicity and for good reason. World War Two was in its second year and military shipping details were censored.
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| 'Queen Mary' and 'Queen Elizabeth' Outside Sydney Heads', 1941 (John Charles Allcot (1888-1973) |
The 1941 rendezvous of the Queens was only known by locals as it would have been impossible not to notice such giant, world-famous liners. Fortunately, however, discretion prevailed. No harm was to come their way, nor to their embarking military service personnel. Ironically, during the six decades since the War ended, scant details of their rendezvous have come to light.
Fortunately many Australian and New Zealand ex-service veterans still remember the meeting which took place in Sydney's Athol Bight the ships embarked for North Africa and Europe.
In a recreation of that day in 1941 when Queen Mary steamed out fully laden with more than 10,000 troops and crew passing a Queen Elizabeth, the 2007 event will follow the same order of procession.
Cunard Line is no stranger to orchestrating grand media events. The company's history features many celebrations—from the pioneer transatlantic voyage of the tiny Britannia in 1840 to the record-breaking Mauretania (1907), the 80,000-ton Queen Mary (1936), and the launch of QE2 and, most recently, QM2.
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| QM2 and QE2 in Sydney. February 2007. (Cunard) |
A special gala event had originally been scheduled for 1940 to introduce the second Queen to the North Atlantic service. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Britannia's first voyage the new 84,000-ton Queen Elizabeth was to make her maiden voyage from England to New York on July 4, 1940. Thereafter, Cunard Line's giant ships would rule supreme as anexpress service on the highly competitive Atlantic trade.
Unfortunately, the events of September 1939 on the German/Polish frontier saw the ambitions of Cunard, and every other shipping line, interrupted. In February 1940, even before she was fully completed, Queen Elizabeth made her first voyage - directly and at great speed - from the shipyards of Glasgow to the sanctuary of New York. There she made her first rendezvous with Queen Mary, which had already been converted for troop carrying, and was preparing to voyage to Australia via the South Atlantic and Indian oceans.
Queen Elizabeth also underwent conversion in New York until November 1940 when she followed Queen Mary into war service. On February 21, 1941 , she arrived in Sydney, embarked her military personnel passengers and sped directly to the Suez Canal region, returning again to Sydney on April 9, 1941 - the occasion of her second rendezvous with Queen Mary.
Although the ships encountered each other on many occasions during the war years, neither was to return to Australia once World War Two was over. The sisters were then rebuilt and modernised to commence the transatlantic "ferry" service as originally intended prior to the world conflict. Queen Elizabeth made her much-delayed first sailing as a luxury liner from Southampton in October 1946 while Queen Mary resumed her pre-war schedule the following July.
During the next two decades Cunard Line dominated the luxury Atlantic trade. Despite the advent of newer rivals and the gradual inroad of airlines, the Queens remained icons of premium overseas travel, and enjoyed international acclaim. By the mid 1960s, now ageing and increasingly uneconomical to operate, time was running out for the sister ships.
By 1968 both ships had departed the Cunard fleet. Queen Mary sailed away in November 1967 to laid-up semi-retirement at Long Beach, California. Queen Elizabeth was not so fortunate. After time laid-up in Florida she was sold to Taiwanese interests, and converted for an intended career as a floating-university. Instead, she was to burn and sink in circumstances mysterious to this day.
Happily, the legend of the Cunard Queens did not end in 1968. A modern Queen Elizabeth 2 made her entry in 1969. Today she is the longest serving Queen in maritime history, and arguably the most famous of them all. The upcoming celebrations will celebrate her as well as her glamorous sister.
On February 20 when fireworks light the sky above QM2 and QE2, perhaps many of the onlookers will recall that earlier occasion when the original bearers of their famous names met so far from their normal realm - before voyaging through troubled waters to eventually create a dynasty.
Written by Scott Baty, Issue 24 Winter 2006
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