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Originally posted by J.S.S.Normandie:
But what about the way the fire started? Theywere cutting down the eight gold pillars. Why?
My question is why did the Normandie get altered
so much more than other ships for WWII?

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They were cutting down the iron stanchions which were the light supports--those huge Lalique crystal panels had already been removed, leaving the bare iron bars sticking up out of the deck--these are what they were cutting, and in fact the 4th and last one was the one which started the fire, being right next to hundreds of Kapok life belts. Rather foolish!

From the Official Report of the fire, each of these four stanchions weighed 500 pounds. They were 15 inches in circumference and rested on a base which rose 20 inches from the deck.

From the official report, here is what happened:

Rich

[ 03-10-2006: Message edited by: Linerrich ]

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Originally posted by J.S.S.Normandie:
Thanks, that's different from what I had read. But my point still stands. Why was the Normandie stripped much more than other liners.

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It's hard to say if NORMANDIE really was stripped more than the QUEENS. I can understand why they would remove those 4 light towers in the lounge. And I guess we can be thankful that so many decorative wall panels were removed prior to the fire--at least they still exist in museums, when they otherwise would have burned, too!

Maybe it's just because in the days right after Pearl Harbor, the Americans were so upset and determined to join the war effort that they got carried away. And the QUEENS were fitted for troops in two different stages, first for the Australian troops, and then more intensively to carry the Americans after Pearl Harbor.

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Originally posted by Liner Guy:
Normandie was in a very different position from Cunard's Queens. Cunard is a British company, French Line of course, French. One must remember her last voyage was 1939, she was completing her trip to the US when Nazi Germany marched into Paris. At that point the French government was now part of Germany and the Normandie being a French vessel basically defected to the United States instead of returning to Nazi occupied France. The US was not officially involved in WW2 in 1939 so the ship just sat there in New York until 1941. When the US entered the war the Normandie was requisitioned by the US allowing it to be used for the war effort. Unlike the Queens the Normandie oficially taken over by the US was officially a US ship and given her new name, Lafayette. Many of the differences in the way she was handled was due to this difference in ownership and timing of the conversion.

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Originally posted by linerguy:
Oh no,...I've been cloned!

Russ

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Originally posted by sslewis:
Linerguy,
very interesting.....
But remember..Ile de France was in the same situation and managed by Cunard during WW2!
So why Normandie couldn´t follow tracks?

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That's a very good question...
French Line put Ile de France on loan to the British Admiralty in 1940. I do not know why they didn't do this with Normandie, maybe they were afraid of losing her? Maybe they felt that they couldn't loan her to the same operators as Queen Mary? I don't know. But, Normandie did just sit there moored to pier 88 for 2 years; August 1939 - December 1941. Her former running mates all came and went in their serving in their ghost grey livery for most of that time. That was until the US entered the war and seized her just 5 days after entering the war. She burned and was lost 2 months later in February of '42.
But the difference here is that Ile de France was "put on loan" to the British and the Normandie was "requisitioned" by the US much later in the war. Ironically, I think that her fate may have faired better had she served earlier in the war dodging U-boats and Luftwaffe attacks.

[ 03-16-2006: Message edited by: Liner Enthusiast ]

No problem,...afterall, it IS a cool handle!