I See a Ship in the Harbour - Part 3 - Ocean Liners - Pre-WW II

New York, NY - Franny Wentzel - Monday, August 2nd, 2010 : goo

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Once upon a time - when the world was young - people sailed on ocean liners to get where they needed to go...

The turn of the 20th century marked an era of opulence and luxury that - with the interruption of World War I - continued into the 1930s - ironically with the start of another world war

Germany began the century with no less than five grand four-funneled ocean liners

The Hamburg America line had its own facilities across the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey

The British Cunard Line soon followed with their own four stackers like the Lusitania

Seen here at the Chelsea Piers

Mauritania

and the lovely Aquitania

The White Star Line built a trio of their own...

...but only the Olympic made it to New York

Well the Titanic's lifeboats made it

with an assist from the Carpathia

After the sinking of the Titanic, the Hamburg America Line built two megaships - the Imperator and the Vaterland and had launch a third named the Bismark before the start of the first World War

Upon wars end, all of them were seized for reparations - the US got the Vaterland and the British got the other two.

As compensation for the sinking of the Lusitania, Cunard got the Imperator and renamed her the Berengaria

The White Star line got the Bismark and renamed her the Majestic

America renamed her prize the Leviathan

Millions were poured into making her a grand ship of state...

...but thanks to Prohibition, people generally avoided sailing on her

The French Line had no such trouble with their vessels - left - SS France - right - SS Paris

As passenger traffic grew the Chelsea Piers were supplanted by a larger set uptown

Top to bottom - Europa - Rex - Normandie - Georgic - Berengeria

Land was carved out of Manhattan Island to accomodate the superliners of the 1930s - seen here at the start of WW II - top to bottom - Rex - Italy had yet to enter the war - Aquitania - Queen Mary - Normandie - Ile de France

The older piers remained in use...

Normandie passing the Italian liner Conte De Savoia

In 1929 and 1930 the Germans had recovered from the War and sent over the near twins Bremen and Europa - seen here

The Italians built a pair of superliners - Rex & Conte de Savoia - during the Great Depression and the British fielded the Queen Mary

The French outdid them all with the Normandie

By the time World War II had started the United States had recovered from the debacle of the Leviathan affair and had built the more modest SS America

Other American lines had replaced their older ships - the Grace Line's Santa Rosa was from the same designer as the America

Towards the end of her career she was used as a floating prop for the 1970s movie Raise the Titanic

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