Queen Mary diorama

Modeling Subjects Ships
1

Hi All,

Last weekend my wife and I went out to Long Beach, CA. and stayed at the Queen Mary and while touring the promenade deck I came across a section of displays showing some of the history of it’s wartime service as a troop ship in WW2 and in the display was a very nicely done diorama of the Queen Mary during an accident with another ship.

October 1942 occurred the worst tragedy of the ship’s history. On the last leg of a voyage from the United States to Gourock in Scotland, Queen Mary was met by a small flotilla of Royal Navy vessels assigned to escort the ship across the Irish Sea. The task of guarding the liner from air attack was given to the 4,290-ton light cruiser HMS Curacoa(1918). The cruiser had a maximum speed of 25 knots and the Captain knew the liner would overtake his vessel. He signalled to Captain of the Queen Mary his intention to edge in astern of the liner. Less than two hours later the two vessels collided. People aboard Queen Mary felt no more than a bump, but Curacoa was sliced in half as the liner ploughed through her, and 329 of the 430 crew were lost. The whole incident was hidden under a veil of secrecy until after the war. The most likely cause was found to be interaction between the two ships, which pulled the cruiser into the liner’s path.

Here’s a link ofpictures I took and the best of the ones that came out…lol

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v229/SonsofAsgard/QueenMarydiorama/

2

for some reason your spaces got removed :frowning:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v229/SonsofAsgard/Queen%20Mary%20diorama/

3

I redid it so please remove this one :slight_smile:

4

Grizzly1970

If you are interested to read more about this incident look for the book, “Queen Mary and the Cruiser” by David Thomas and Patrick Holmes.

I’m gearing up to do a model of the Queen Mary as the Gray Ghost and was told about this book. Patrick Holmes is an actual survivor of the incident. As it turns out the accident was covered up for almost 2 years before it was made public. 338 members of the Curacoa went down with the ship.

One of the misconceptions about the incident was that it took place at night in stormy seas when in fact it was a clear sunny day with about 5 foot swells.

Because of the rules set forth to protect Liners from U-boat attacks the Queen was not allowed to stop to render aid. Under no circumstance was she to stop.