By Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist.
August 5, 1943, anchored
at the River Clyde, Glasgow, Scotland, RMS
Queen Mary awaited the arrival of Great Britain’s Prime Minister, Winston
Spencer Churchill and his staff of over two hundred and another fifty Royal
Marine orderlies. Nearly nine years earlier, named for and christened by Mary
of Teck, the wife of the British Empire’s King George V, the grand ship and the
distinguished prime minister were well acquainted. Q.M. had received him onboard her decks before. Four years into the
Second World War, the former greatest ocean liner in the world, plying the North
Atlantic for the pleasure of the rich and
famous, and the wannabe rich and famous,
was commissioned in her new call to service as a troop carrier. Transporting 15,000
troops per trip and traveling at 30 knots, she was the largest and fastest
troop carrier sailing. In no way did she resemble her former glamorous self,
for her luxurious Art Deco interiors were removed and stored away, her exterior
lights extinguished, and her portholes shrouded. In addition, she was painted camouflage
grey, which earned her the moniker: Grey
Ghost. At sea, she looked like a grey
whale on steroids. At war’s end, she would be retrofitted to her former glory,
resuming her career as an ocean liner, service she was to provide for nearly
two decades more. Upon her retirement, her illustrious and legendary career
would be exulted in anew in her guise as a posh hotel and museum at Long Beach,
California, USA. Listed on the ship’s log as “Colonel Warden,” Mr. Churchill
and his flock boarded her that day in August, 1943 as the Grey Ghost.
Her
Sun Deck, formerly a source of pleasurable entertainment and relaxation was now
a gun collector’s dream. Thirty-three guns, twelve rocket launchers, a range
finder, a central gun control house, machine guns, and a four-inch gun mounted on
her fantail, the Q.M./G.G. was
armored to the teeth. To protect her from submarines, from bow to stern she was
girdled in a system of cables charged with electrical current that rendered her
invisible to the sensors of underwater magnetic fields, assisted by an underwater
sound detector system. To conceal her route, she got underway on a zig-zag
course, less vulnerable to attack than earlier in the war. Although Allied
ships traveled in convoys, they had been easy prey for Nazi wolf packs (German
submarines that traveled together). In 1942 alone the Germans sank 1,664 Allied
ships, and continued to dominate the Atlantic until early 1943. The Battle of
the Atlantic that had raged simultaneously with the planning for the Allied
counterattack on North Africa in November, 1942, had gained the Allies the
upper-hand in the Atlantic by mid-1943.
Below deck, Q.M./G.G.’s
transformation as a troop ship was a miraculous feat of engineering, but her
Main Deck was reserved for Mr. Churchill and his entourage. His personal suite
furnished to his taste and comfort, opened to a private dining area, conference
room, and a map room, as well as a communications room that kept him in
constant contact with both sides of the Atlantic. At
the end of the voyage, Q.M./G.G. would
deposit Mr. Churchill and his retinue at the landing jetty at Halifax, Nova
Scotia, and there they would proceed to Quebec, Canada by train. Once arrived,
they would take up residence at the Citadel, King George VI royal residence, an
imposing structure that hovered on cliffs above the St. Lawrence River. Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States, was to join Mr. Churchill in
Quebec for a confab on war policies.
Mr. Churchill’s four
days of occupancy within Q.M./G.G.’s
walls prior to the conference were not set aside for leisure. His malodorous
cigars chugged feverishly throughout his quarters the whole time. He even
chomped on them while submerged in the bathtub of his private bathroom, bathing
two times a day every day of the four days he was onboard her. Like a bloated,
albino whale, he splashed around, gesticulating wildly, issuing orders to
whomever perched beyond the bathroom door, waves of dirty water spilling over
the side of the tub and puddling the tile floor.
His nasty habits that
wreaked menace wherever he appeared notwithstanding, Mr. Churchill was an
admirable and a likable fellow. He carried the weight of the war waged against
his people and their considerable holdings around the globe on his shoulders, and
still, he exhibited a ready and lively humor spiced with a charming
eccentricity. His statuesque and elegant wife, Clementine was onboard with him,
and most any onlooker would attest to the love they held for each other. Their long
and admired romance expressed itself in a myriad of ways. His affection for the
youngest of their five living offspring, their daughter, Mary, whom served as
her father’s aide-de-camp on the voyage, was likewise palpable.
Oftener than not, it
was Mary parked outside his bathroom door, a spiral stenographer pad in hand,
pencil perched. “The impression I most want to convey to our friend the
president…are you hearing me, Mary?”
“I hear you perfectly, Papa.”
“Take this down and do
not miss a word. I will turn to your notes to keep me in touch with my own mind
on these points, as you well know.”
“I am well aware, Papa,
but you haven’t apprised me of any points to… ”
A great splash cut
short Mary’s response as the prime minister slapped beneath the skin of the bathtub’s
water. A wave jetted over the side and seeped beneath the cracks of the floor tiles.
The great ship seemed to hold its breath as little florets of his air billowed
up and danced along the surface, and then burst one by one, marking the seconds
like a metronome. He popped back up, ran his hands across his eyes to clear
them, and then honked like a goose to clear his sinuses. “I am pondering the
points, daughter! Point A: the president must walk away from our conference
reacquainted with Britain and her Dominion’s enormous contribution to our
Anglo-American partnership, as well as our continued commitment to and
involvement in it. We can’t have the American people develop an attitude that
once we conquer Hitler, that we will fold up and walk away. We have much at
stake in South-East Asia in the battle against Japan. I must be forthcoming with
the president in shoring-up our position in that conflict. How does that sound,
Mary?”
“Brilliant, Papa!”
“Point B: My water
grows cold, daughter!” An impressive and talented assemblage of toes on his left
foot crawled up the working end of the bathtub and turned the faucet. Hot water
cascaded into the tub and he took a delicate sip of brandy that because of a
lifting of the mandatory “dry-law” for his tenure aboard ship, hovered
precariously in its glass on the rim of the tub. He then slipped the cigar
between his lips, inhaled, and placed it in the ashtray on the flat surface
behind his head as the smoke from it spurted from his nostrils. Presently the
toes stole back up to the faucet and turned it off.
“Back to point B: I
must dispel any notion on Franklin’s part that because of my desires for the
South-East Asian Theater that I am not as committed to our cross-channel
campaign into France next spring as is he. I must demonstrate to him that his
Anglo partner is fully engaged in planning for Overlord. I also want to press
on him that it is time to appoint the commander for the cross-channel operation.”
Grunts and groans and splashing water accompanied his rise to his feet inside
the tub. “Mary, I have misplaced my towel. Come! Come and help your Papa, my
girl.”
Breakfasted, dressed
and prepared an hour later, chugging cigar fixed in his lips, he joined the
gathered Anglo and American Chiefs of Staff in the conference room. Thus began a working day comprised of hammering out
the details of the goals for the approaching conference with the president. It
was a routine that was repeated on each of his four days within Q.M/G.G.’s walls, workdays that extended
well into the dinner hour.
A rumor abounds that the
Queen Mary is haunted, but perhaps
not in the way sponsored by certain persons who claim to know such things. Much
more likely, the haunting stems from the startling reality of Mr. Churchill’s days
onboard her, a time when he and a handful of other mere mortals pursued paths
that would either safeguard the world against Hitler’s satanic power or allow
it to flourish to the utter destruction of civilization, and/or of humanity.©
Note: the above essay is a work of fiction based on true events.
Image: RMS Queen Mary as the Grey Ghost
Recommended reading:
Memoirs of the Second World War by Winston S. Churchill
HAUNTED QUEEN OF THE SEAS by Nicole Strickland
CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL, the Biography of a Marriage by Mary [Churchill] Soames
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT and the Making of Modern America by Allan M. Winkler
Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase in eBook and soft cover at Amazon.com and by request at other booksellers.
No comments:
Post a Comment