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This Week

On Monday, I gave you the story of an English nurse working on the Eastern Front during the Brusilov Offensive in the summer of 1916…

Thursday, 14th July

Yesterday, something happened which touched me deeply.

Among the few wounded brought to us in the morning was a young officer of the Vyatski Regiment. We were exceedingly proud of this regiment; it had fought so long and so valiantly, and several of its wounded had passed through our hands. This young officer was found to be severely wounded in both legs. One leg demanded immediate amputation; the wound was jagged and torn and fragments of rusty metal were extracted from the swollen, discoloured flesh. The leg was amputated high above the knee.

Our surgeons were very worried, and the ominous word 'gangrene' was bandied from mouth to mouth. 'We might have saved him had they brought him here 24 hours earlier,' said one of them ruefully.

But those 24 hours had been spent on the cold, muddy earth, near the enemy's wire defences. He was placed on a narrow bed in a small, empty room. Smirnov and I kept vigil at his bed-side. His wandering mind was often on the battlefield, leading his men to victory and, in a frenzy of patriotic fervour, he would swing himself from side to side and his strong arms would pound the air, while Smirnov and another stalwart orderly would seek to prevent him from crashing on to the floor. We knew that he could not last another day; the first stage of mortification was well-advanced. The terrible odour of putrefaction which accompanies that form of gangrene was harassing us desperately, but we knew that it would not be for long. Before Death came to release him, he became calmer - he was back at home, among those whom he loved. Suddenly he seized my arm and cried, 'I knew that you would come! Elena, little dove, I knew that you would come!

Kiss me, Elena, kiss me!' I realised that in his delirium he had mistaken me for the girl he loved. I bent and kissed his damp, hot face, and he became more tranquil. Death claimed him while he was still in a state of tranquillity. How I longed to be able to tell that unknown Elena that her unseen presence had helped him to die in peace.

Russian troops make their way up towards the battle.

You can finish reading this article here:

ARTICLE: A Nurse on the Eastern Front

Then yesterday it was monthly feature time… I’ve gone a bit over the top with researching the Queen Mary’s WW2 service, with the result that it’s a two-parter. This month, its all about the construction of the ship, and why she was so famous, along with first-hand accounts of British and Australian service personnel sailing off to war aboard in 1940-41. Next month, I’ll cover the rest of the war, including what thousands of Americans thought of her when they came aboard, including a Hollywood star who lost a fortune during his voyage, and a disastrous outing in the North Atlantic in 1942.

This is apparently how she came about: Picture a stuffy boardroom on the fifth floor in the Cunard building, overlooking the Mersey in 1926:

“Well, how long was the Mauretania?”

“790 feet.”

“The Aquitania?”

“901 feet.”

“Well, let's make this one a thousand feet and see what happens.”

The Queen Mary was a comeback for British shipping giants, and though that flippant conversation made it all sound very easy, in actual fact, it would be years before she was built, fitted out and ready to sail.

First off, forget Titanic. Forget that image of hordes of immigrants stampeding westward and churning huge revenues for shipping companies, and requiring a ‘stack ‘em high’ philosophy below decks. The North Atlantic trade looked nothing like that by the time the world emerged from the First World War and ploughed towards the 1930s. Thanks largely to a quota system for immigration that came in in 1923, numbers of a million odd emigrants a year prior to 1914 had dropped to about 90,000 heading to America by 1931. This amounted to a seven million pound loss in revenue for the likes of Cunard and White Star.

The double keel of 534 laid out at John Brown’s (All photos come from the book I talk about in my sources at the end, unless otherwise specified)

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Prior to the war, Cunard boasted the fasted ships afloat. White Star had given up chasing them, hence the all out, ridiculous opulence of Titanic and Olympic. If they couldn’t send you across the Atlantic the quickest, they’d make up for it with a new level of comfort. The problem was that the war, and then everyone being broke after the war, tied in with the reduced traffic heading to North America, meant that Cunard hadn’t updated her prized liners since. Mauretania, Lusitania’s sister, was built in 1907. Aquitania was finished in 1914 and they were still the ones running the prestige, express service into New York.

If Britain had sat still, others hadn’t. The record holder for the North Atlantic held the Blue Riband, and in 1929, Mauretania lost her two-decade old crown to the German liner Bremen. She tried to grab it back, and she got within three hours of doing it, but then along came another German ship, Europa who shaved it down by another half an hour.

534 was so ridiculous, she encroached on unusual spaces at the shipyard.

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At this point, Queen Mary still didn’t exist, despite that 1926 conversation. In 1930, John Brown’s on the Clyde were told they had the contract, but contractual shenanigans held up construction by another six months. At this point, she was known merely by her keel number: 534. Then there were issues in getting this ship insured. By the end of 1931, Cunard was haemorrhaging money and passengers crossing the North Atlantic had halved. Don’t forget, there’s been a Wall Street Crash in 1929 and a massive recession following. Work was halted on 534, the half finished hull, weirdly oversized for her surroundings, hung over the shipyard mournfully half built and Cunard found themselves in dire straits. So did White Star, who were also lumbered with an ageing fleet, and in spring 1934, the two companies merged their North Atlantic trade to secure government funding.

Finally, in September 1934, 534 was ready for launch. There had been some lame suggestions for name: Clydania, Leonia, Scotia, Britannia, Galicia, Hamptonia. The ‘ia’ at the end is a Cunard tradition, ‘ic’ belonged to White Star. That was a bone of contention since the merger, especially as technically she was a Cunard ship. There are some urban legends about the name going about. The public were invited to join in, and thought nobody reached the sublime heights of “Boaty McBoatface,’ like a few years ago when the same question was put out for another ship, some boot-licker did suggest King George V.

He was going to be there when she was launched. So was the Prince of Wales, and Queen Mary would be the one to do the smashing of the bottle and ceremonial. What if…

If you’ve ever been to Glasgow, you’ll know it rains every day. On 26th September 1934, it bucketed down. But we Brits are belligerent about the weather. It was a case of challenge accepted, and 30,000 odd people still turned out to see her slide into the water anyway. The Queen Mary was a beast. At more than 80,000 tons and more than a thousand foot long, nobody could be sure exactly what would happen when she hit the water. The thing all of the nerds at John Brown’s were trying to work out using tidal charts and calculations was how far she would glide when she went in, because lobbing something that heavy into the Clyde and just hoping for the best was dangerous. The estimate was 1194 feet, and the River Clyde had to be widened over 100 feet for a length of two miles. The river also needed dredging to accommodate her, and millions of tons of soil were dragged up and dumped out at sea.

This photo makes me immensely proud to be British.

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The assembled crowd watched the Queen announce her namesake, and then:

‘Listeners in Sydney, Paris, New York, and Cape Town, as well as all over England, heard the Queen whispering: "Now I press the button?" and the reply, " Yes, that's splendid." For her voice had been picked up by the microphones and echoed round the world… as she pressed the button the thirty-thousand-ton empty shell of the white-painted liner began her journey to the waters, with the sound of creaking timbers and cheering, shouting, delirious Clydesiders echoing over the shipyard. Fifty-five seconds later she was afloat, proud and untamed, yet checked and held like a wild stallion in a corral, by two thousand tons of drag chains, many of which had been borrowed from other yards, and then seized by seven tugs, to be manoeuvred into her fitting-out basin.’

The hull slowed to a stop at 1196 feet.

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I was filming this week in Oxford. I can’t share any more for now, but you’ll be able to see the results in December. However, I did get to poke about in the town hall, and I have a couple of photos to share with you…

I feel like this one needs to be a caption competition. I feel like this child has misbehaved, and the woman is quite justifiably having her parenting skills called into question…

As for this one, herewith is conclusive proof that when he wasn’t employed as the child-catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, that dude with the fishing net and the big nose was a magistrate in Oxford…

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No time for more this weekend, as I’m curled up in a ball of self-pity doing my notes and bibliography for the book next year. On a happy note though, Nicolai and I should be able to share the cover art for Ring of Fire very soon!

Next Week

You’ve had boats, so next up is trains, because at heart I am an eight year old boy when it comes to big shiny machines. We’ll also be heading to Malta…

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