A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words.

Actually there seems to be some debate as to whether that really is the case, but I shall leave that discussion to others. My point is that a picture and a bit of research can certainly produce a thousand words, in fact I remember having to do exactly that for an assignment once.

In this case however I have ten pictures, photographs to be exact, which turned up some months ago at the bottom of a box of books from an auction. They are actually snapshots of famous liners in a very small album, quite interesting and probably not worth a great deal in financial terms.

However there are some rather intriguing stories behind the ships pictured. I am not going to run through all of them, certainly the Queen Mary, Britannic and Normandie are all well known, but a bit of digging into a few of the others turned up some interesting facts.

I am sad to say SS Arandora Star was not particularly familiar to me, but the sinking of it during the World War II was something of a disaster. Over 800 were lost, including Italian and German internees, many from Scotland, as well as British military personnel. The German submarine involved was the U-47, which had a somewhat infamous reputation following its incursion into Scapa Flow and subsequent sinking of HMS Royal Oak, again with a large loss of life.

The Arandora Star was owned by Blue Star Line and was one of five liners which had been ordered together. What I find truly astounding though, is that all five ships were torpedoed by German submarines between 1940-1942, which even considering the amount of vessels lost during this period, does seem rather unlucky.

Another of the vessels pictured is the RMS Majestic, the largest ship ever owned by White Star Line and indeed the largest in the world for some time. However it was actually launched seven years before ever coming into their ownership, as it was originally built in Germany and was originally named the Bismarck. It was launched on the 20^th June 1914, unfortunately eight days later Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, war soon followed and the Bismarck sat unfinished.

So how did it come to be in White Star’s ownership, as a result of the Treaty of Versailles apparently. As it turns out the Bismarck and one of its sister ships, the Imperator were handed over to Britain as part of the reparations after the First World War, with White Star and Cunard gaining a ship each, the Imperator was renamed the Berengaria. The Majestic remained in service until 1936, during which time it appears to have had an interesting life, including colliding with its sister ship in Southampton and running the odd booze cruise during the American prohibition period.

The third and final ship that I looked into is the SS Asturias which completed its maiden voyage from Southampton to La Plata, Argentina in 1926. Again there is a wartime connection with the Asturias being refitted for use as an armoured merchant cruiser in 1939, before being torpedoed by an Italian submarine in 1943. While the ship did not actually sink as a result of the damage, it was considered to be a total loss after being towed into Freemantle.

This though was not the end of the story as in 1945 it was towed to Gibralter and then Belfast for repairs, before being used firstly on the immigration route to Australia, which is a whole story on its own, then secondly as a troop carrier.

All this is really only scratching the surface of the service lives of these three ships and let us not forget the other seven pictures within the album. So regardless of the doubters, it seems clear to me that even if a picture is not worth a thousand words, it can certainly provide the inspiration for a thousand and many more in my experience.

Andy

(Sources: White Star History, Ocean Liners, Blue Star Line, Clyde Marine, SS Asturias)