Queen Mary

When Frank R. Feduik boarded the Queen Mary in New York on Easter morning in 1944, the former ocean liner was so crowded that he slept in an empty swimming pool. In his later Navy oral history, the pharmacist's mate recalled spending the crossing there, resting his head on his seabag. The ship's wartime accommodation used spaces originally intended for a different kind of voyage. A pool built for passengers had become a place for servicemen to sleep on their way to Britain.

The conversion began in 1940, when the Queen Mary sailed from New York to Australia to be fitted as a troopship. Its accommodation expanded far beyond its peacetime capacity. The first troop transport voyage carried 5,500 soldiers from Sydney to Scotland. The liner's wartime identity, the Grey Ghost, grew out of this change of work: a ship associated with ocean travel was carrying people toward a war.