May 3, 2016

The Queen Mary sailed on her Maiden Voyage in 1936 from Southampton, England to New York City. In 31 years of plying the North Atlantic Ocean in war and peace, in fair weather and foul, the Queen Mary would become the most legendary ocean liner the world has ever known.

Winston Churchill enjoyed travelling in grand style by sea and crossed the Atlantic aboard the Queen Mary three times during the Second World War. For security reasons during the war, Churchill was known by the alias ‘Colonel Warden’ while at sea. He even signed the D-Day Declaration while aboard the Queen Mary. In the post-war period, he traversed the Atlantic six more times aboard the Queen Mary or her sister ship Queen Elizabeth.

The Queen Mary retired for good from the sea in 1967. She carried some 2.2 million passengers in peacetime and 810,000 military personnel in during Second World War. Since being moored in Long Beach, she has seen an estimated 50 million people guests. The day the ship was launched in 1934, a well-known English psychic, Lady Mable Fortescue-Harrison would predict, “The Queen Mary will know her greatest fame and popularity when she never sails another mile or carries another fare-paying passenger.”