The RMS Queen Mary’s Ghosts
Transcript
Welcome to Attic Whisper.
It is common knowledge in the podcast community, I am told, that the first few episodes should not be aired. The learning curve is steep and it is best to make those mistakes in private. This is sound advice. That I didn’t take. So if you are still listening, I appreciate your patience.
Nothing happens in a vacuum, so before I talk about her ghosts, first I want to talk about the Queen Mary.
The RMS Queen Mary began her life as Hull Number 534. The John Brown and company began working on her for the Cunard shipping line, along with a sister ship, the RMS Queen Elizabeth. Construction was halted within a year, however, due to the Great Depression. For over two years the rusting skeleton of the abandoned ship dominated the Glasgow skyline. When Cunard applied to the British Government for a loan, they were given enough money to complete both ships with the condition of merging with the rival White Star Line. Merger achieved, work resumed and she was launched in September 1934. It took three and a half years to finish her, and her Art Deco interiors were designed and built by the Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts. It was one of the fastest and most elegant ships of the era.
With accomodations from the luxurious first class staterooms to cramped third class cabins, the Queen Mary boasted two indoor swimming pools, beauty salons, three nurseries, music studio and lecture hall, dog kennels, and many other amenities. Dominating the first class dining room was Max Gill’s gigantic map of the North Atlantic with a miniature motorized model of the Queen Mary marking her position along the route. The RMS Queen Mary’s construction was used to generate jobs and boost the recovery from the Great Depression. In her heyday, she was a symbol of Britain’s International prestige.
And then the war devoured the world.
In 1940, the Queen Mary left New York for Sydney, Australia, to be converted into a troopship. Carpet, tapestries, paintings, china and silver were all stored in warehouses. The woodwork was covered in leather. Elegant staterooms for idle passengers became crowded bunks for soldiers going to war, who had to take turns to sleep.
The ship’s hull, superstructure and funnels were all painted navy grey for camouflage, and a degaussing coil was installed to protect her from magnetic mines. Because of her color and speed, she was nicknamed The Grey Ghost. Throughout the war, she transported as many as 15,000 men in a single voyage, often travelling out of convoy and unescorted, at high speed and in a zig-zagging course, avoiding u-boats across the ocean. It is said that a high bounty was placed on her by Hitler himself.
With war, there comes tragedy. The Queen Mary was built to cross the North Atlantic, with very few air conditioned areas, and inadequate ventilation for the hotter climates she traversed during the war. Soldiers died from heat exhaustion, although the exact number is lost due to war records being.. more mysterious than the ghosts of the Queen Mary.
In October 1942, the HMS Curacoa, a light cruiser of World War I vintage, had been sent to meet and escort the RMS Queen Mary who was in a zig zag trajectory. A contradicting assumption on right of way and a lot of human error led to unthinkable tragedy. The Queen Mary struck the Curacoa a glancing blow at an acute angle about 11 feet from her stern, which spun the smaller vessel around 90 degrees and left her vulnerable for a second, more devastating collision. The Queen Mary sliced through the Curacoa’s hull like a knife though butter, cutting the unfortunate cruiser in two amid the sounds of escaping steam and tearing metal. The Curacoa’s stern momentarily half capsized, its propellers spinning in the empty air, before finally disappearing beneath the waves. The front half, consumed in flames, floated a moment or two longer before going under.
Within seconds, the sea was a thick, viscous mass of oil slicks and screaming, half-dazed survivors. The Queen Mary sailed on without stopping, with a damaged bow. Those were the standing orders. She radioed the destroyers of her convoy, about 7 nautical miles away, to report the collision, and they returned to pick up survivors. Only 101 sailors out of a complement of 429 officers and men lived to tell the tale.
In December of that year, the RMS Queen Mary left New York with over 10,000 American troops heading for Gourock, Scotland, 3,000 miles across the stormy Atlantic. She was carrying seven times the normal number of passengers along with weapons, ammunition, and other equipment, most of it above the waterline. That made her top heavy, and her stability problems only got worse as the voyage went on, because the oil she consumed came from fuel tanks located below the waterline. By the fourth day of the five day journey, the Queen Mary pitched and rolled in foul weather, high winds and huge waves. The next day the howling winds reached hurricane strength. As far as the eye could see, the Queen Mary was surrounded by an angry ocean with white frothing peaks and deep dark valleys.
About 700 miles from Scotland, the Queen Mary suddenly fell into an almost bottomless pit. She was then broadsided on her port side by a monstrous wave crest that was at least twice as high as any wave she had encountered. This mountain of water shattered windows on the bridge, 95 feet above the waterline. It tore away all the lifeboats on the port side of the top deck. It broke through portholes, sending water rushing into hundreds of cabins. But most seriously, the weight of this stupendous wave, many thousands of tons of water, slowly rolled the Queen Mary over farther than she had ever rolled over before. The lifeboats on the starboard side swung down with the ship and almost touched the sea. Soldiers on the lower decks of the starboard side looked out of their portholes and saw dark seawater. Many were thrown out of their bunks and broke arms and legs or suffered concussions.
Soldiers slid out doorways riding torrents of water from broken portholes. Many soldiers threw on life preservers, convinced the ship had been torpedoed. When Mary had listed over on its side farther than any ship’s crew had ever experienced before, and when she seemed to stay there for an eternity, those seamen figured that the ship would never right itself again. In fact, according to later calculations, if the Queen Mary had listed over only three more degrees, she would have capsized. Tragedy was apparently avoided only due to the exceptional seamanship on the part of her bridge officers with a quick turn of her helm so that her bow was brought dead on to this exceptional wave. Interesting fact, this incident was inspiration for Paul Gallico’s book, The Poseidon Adventure.
After the end of the war in 1945, the RMS Queen Mary did 13 War Brides trips, reuniting families formed, and separated by war. These trips were full of women, some with their children, who left their countries and everything they knew behind, in the hopes of forming a new family and life with their loved ones in a new land.
From September 1946 to July 1947, The Queen Mary was refitted for passenger service, with air conditioning and other updates added. Returned to her former splendor, and along with the RMS Queen Elizabeth, she dominated the transatlantic passenger trade with a two ship weekly express service well into the 1950’s.
In 1958 the first transatlantic flight by a jet aircraft began a completely new era of competition for the Cunard Queens. Well, competition might be the wrong word, since by 1965 the entire Cunard line was operating at a loss. In order to save the company, the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth were retired from service and sold. Of the 18 bids for the Queen Mary, Cunard selected the city of Long Beach’s offer of 3.45 million. The city manager at the time, John R. Mansell, called it “the greatest single catalyst for progress in the history of the city.”
Cunard offered to deliver the Queen Mary, empty of passengers, free of charge, but that was too anticlimactic for her new owners. Bypassing the cruise line, who repeatedly assured them that she was not built for tropical travel, they hired New York-based Fugazy Travel Bureau, which sold out tickets to the 39-day adventure in a matter of weeks. Prices varied from $1,200 and $9,000 per person.
The warnings had not been exaggerated. During her journey, the Queen Mary encountered temperatures of 90 degrees fahrenheit, and the bowels of the ship were so hot, Chef Lock Horsborough died of cerebral hemorrhage caused by heat stroke. Still, she persevered and arrived at her final destination on December 9, 1967.
Once in Long Beach, she was dubbed a building. Everything below C deck was removed, except for the aft engine room and “shaft alley”, at the stern of the ship. Fuel tanks were filled with local mud to provide stability. The rest would be storage and office space.
With first and second class cabin converted into hotel rooms, the main lounges and dining rooms were now banquet spaces. On Promenade Deck, the starboard promenade was enclosed to feature an upscale restaurant and café named Lord Nelson’s and Lady Hamilton’s; it was themed in the fashion of early-19th century sailing ships. The famed and elegant Observation Bar was redecorated as a western-themed bar. The smaller first-class public rooms, such as the Drawing Room, Library, Lecture Room and the Music Studio, would be stripped of most of their fittings and converted to commercial use, to go with the two more shopping malls that were built on the Sun Deck. And this was all before Disney got involved.
It is hard to say exactly what came first, The Queen Mary’s reputation as a haunted location, or “Port Disney’s Haunted Passages Tour”. Haunted Mansion style effects were installed in room B340, with creaking floors, disembodied voices, haunted faucets and trick mirrors. The locations of grisly murders and tragic drownings were thoroughly explored and exploited (although not substantiated). The tour was promoted with a translucent image of John Pedder standing in the boiler room.
I would like to take a moment and talk about John Pedder. He was an 18 year old man from Skipton, North Yorkshire. He had joined the crew a few months earlier and was engaged in bilge pumping duties when he was crushed by a watertight door at around 3:45 am. There were no witnesses, but he was found shortly after the incident. The distressed crew tried to help him, but he was gone. I have heard stories that claim he was playing at how many times he could cross the door before it closed. While nobody knows what happened, I doubt jumping alone back and forth through a door to see if he’ll make it is something an eighteen year old does for fun at 3:45 in the morning! He was a young man in 1966. He is survived by two sisters that have, from the start, requested that their brother’s death not be treated like a peepshow to be exploited for profit. Their extremely reasonable request has fallen on deaf ears for decades.
So, who are the ghosts of the Queen Mary? The most famous, I think, is Jackie, a little girl that drowned in the thirties. Except there is no record of her existence, or death. A young woman named Dana that was murdered, along with her family, in room B474, Except that never happened. John Henry, who worked and died in the boiler room, but he is not in the records either. So, what is happening?
The most famous death aboard the famed ship is quite a story. It was in the later part of September 1949 as the ship steamed towards New York. Senior Second Officer William Stark was coming off duty and popped into the deck officers’ wardroom to relax a bit and have a drink.
He settled in and told the steward that he wanted some gin and lime juice. The other man – not the officers’ usual steward – went back to the pantry and complied. Unfamiliar with the setup, however, he didn’t know that the unmarked gin bottle he pulled was actually filled with tetrachloride: used for cleaning rags and the like.
The steward returned and gave Second Officer Stark his drink. Unfortunately, Stark’s cold prevented him from smelling tetrachloride’s distinct “sweetness.” He threw it back and knew right away that something was not right. Stark didn’t think the situation was too serious and is said to have laughed about it to his colleagues; chances are that he never knew what he had drunk.
His condition grew worse as the hours dragged on, however, and he died a few days later on September 22, 1949.
Yet his name does not appear in the top of the ghost lists. Besides the apparition in Watertight Door 13, which I am not convinced is Mr. Pedder, most of the Queen Mary’s famous ghosts have no earthly record. Oh, the most haunted room? The one you can book at a high price and a ghost hunting kit is provided with your key? Room B340. The room Disney left locked, for years, while legends grew around it.
See, people have forgotten that this was a Disney attraction. Disney wrote the horrific scripts, set the stage, hired the actors, and installed the special effects. And then left. But the stories remained, and they were spread by everyone that expected the spooky shadows and unexplained noises. After a while, you don’t need the recordings, you start hearing things on your own. Ghost stories grow the more you feed them, become palpable, solid.
It turns out, when you think something is haunted for long enough, it can actually start showing signs of a haunting.
The most chilling report is of someone who had snuck, after hours, to explore the lower decks without a tour. Having gotten a bit lost in the dark, he was suddenly surrounded by sound. Screams, tearing metal, multiple collisions, a barrage of sound that had him running the opposite direction. The next day, after a very short sleep, he joined the official tour, and learned of the tragedy of the Curacoa, and the memory of the previous night gave his skeptic mind a lot to think about.
There are the usual sightings of a Captain in full uniform, either aloof or staring disconcertingly. A playful woman in a fashionably vintage suit leaving wet tracks from a long dry pool. The little playful girl who giggles and pulls covers. A lady in a white ballgown enjoying an evening at the bar. A young man in overalls flirting with passersby. The growling grumpy man under the stairs.
With haunted tours and seances still occurring on a regular basis, there is a lot of expectation and emotion trapped. This gives birth to illusions, stories, hauntings, and perhaps an egregore or two. Greg Newkirk explains that an “egregore,” is a thought form created by “decades of emotions pumped into a specific place or thing.” Oh, that reminds me, maybe I should do an episode on Santa Claus in a few months!
So, who are the Ghosts of the Queen Mary? Disney? The thousands of people that have toured her? Or, maybe..us? Either way, if you see the Captain staring at you on the elevator, the lady in white enjoying a drink at the bar, or perhaps a young woman in a vintage swimsuit splashing in an empty pool, stop for a second, and see if you can hear Bob Hope singing, or catch a glimpse of Greta Garbo. Personally, the ghost I would love to see most of all, is the RMS Queen Mary herself, in her full glory.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Attic Whisper. Information for this episode was gathered from many knowledgeable and enthralling sources, including:
“The Power of the Sea” is a book by Bruce Parker. It tells the story of our struggle to predict when the sea will unleash its power against us. It interweaves thrilling stories of unpredicted natural disasters with stories of scientific discoveries.
Warfare History Network provided the chilling details of the HMS Curacoa Tragedy.
Greg and Dana Newkirk are preeminent researchers of the supernatural who run the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal & Occult. You might recognize them from Hellier. If you don’t, it’s because you haven’t seen Hellier and now I’m judging you.
Lastly, this podcast would not be possible without the support and encouragement from my partners, Erin and Paul. To listen to their own creative endeavors, please visit OpenBetaMusic.com or follow Open Beta Music on Facebook. If you like Celtic, folk, and geeky music, this is a band you will certainly enjoy.
The music in this episode was composed by Juan Sanchez, provided by Breaking Copyright. Please check the episode notes for the creative commons license.
Transcripts for this and all episodes can be found at atticwhisper.com. Links to the books, podcasts, and videos mentioned will be included in the episode notes.
You can reach me for questions, comments or suggestions on Instagram as @atticwhisper. I appreciate your patience, I am still getting used to communicating with people outside the Attic.
Sound Engineering by Paul Schmidt. Website Assistance by Erin Lewis.
Thank you for listening.
Attic Whisper 