A decade after the end of World War I, competition between transatlantic operators resumed. The race for speed and size of liners, which led to the emergence of the huge White Star Line and French Line, the fastest in the world of Mauritania and the fashionable Ile de France, has entered a new round.
France joins the race for the Atlantic
In the thirties of the twentieth century, rumors spread among shipowners and shipbuilding companies that the French CGT, which previously relied only on luxury and comfort, rather than technical specifications, intends to build a superliner. The company turned to the shipyard in Saint-Nazaire in northern France, where the le de France was built. Engineers decided that the new ship would be just an enlarged version of an ocean liner launched in 1926.
The ingenious project of the Russian shipbuilder
The fate of the new flagship has changed thanks to the Russian designer Vladimir Yurkevich, who proposed a revolutionary hull design. A shipbuilding engineer had previously designed the hulls of four battlecruisers for the Russian fleet, which remained unfinished, most likely due to the 1917 revolution. Yurkevich managed to convince the CGT leadership of the advisability of cooperation only with the help of senior friends.
Difficulties at the design stage
According to the specifications of the Russian engineer, a model was implemented. Verification showed that the Yurkevich project was much more effective than any building built earlier. French engineers realized that the future ship would not need a lot of horsepower. But the need to accelerate to 30 knots required the choice of a powerful and economical engine, which was a problem for manufacturers. As a result, instead of the usual steam turbines, electric motors were installed.
The future trans-Atlantic liner Normandy, which at the development stage was codenamed “product No. 534”, was in no hurry to construct. The plans were revised when the Wall Street crash occurred. This has seriously affected the largest shipbuilding companies. The French CGT (Compagnie Générale Transatlantique) was no exception. In addition, the popularity of travel across the Atlantic has fallen significantly.
Start of construction of the Normandy liner
The construction of the transatlantic liner Normandy was nevertheless begun in 1931. The shipbuilding company was forced to request a subsidy from the French government. The request was granted, but the government received management of the company. Such changes did not cause additional losses. The first tests were carried out already four years after the start of construction of the Normandy liner (see photo in the review).
When the public saw Normandy
Launching took place on the twenty-eighth of October 1932. This event was accompanied by serious public excitement. More than two hundred thousand onlookers gathered on the banks of the Loire River, the French president was present, and his wife was to christen the ship. "Normandy" poured water over the crowd of spectators, rolling down from the stocks at great speed. Fortunately, there were no injuries.
Description of the transatlantic liner
The workers who were involved in the preparation (including decoration) of the Normandy had enough time to put the ship in good shape. As a result, it became so luxurious that its luxurious interiors (as it turned out later) suppressed passengers with pomp and pathos. The total cost of the interiors was 55 million dollars.
Description of the ship "Normandy" was amazing. During the construction, 12 million rivets were used (the record number at that time), and the body was made of durable steel using small amounts of electric welding. The liner consumed 1,200 tons of fuel oil per day. In 1936, four three-blade propellers were replaced with four-blade propellers due to strong vibration. After the first flight, passengers complained that it was impossible to stay in tourist penitents because of this shortcoming.
The main dining room comfortably housed a thousand seats, as well as a theater hall (380 seats), a greenhouse, a garage for a hundred cars, a swimming pool (25 mx 5.8 m). On the ship "Normandy" there were almost 850 cabins, 480 showers, 320 bathtubs, almost 1,500 wash basins and plumbing fixtures, which are necessary for the needs of passengers. Every hour spent up to 40 tons of hot, 100 tons of cold and 300 tons of sea water.
First voyage and Normandy records
On its first voyage, the ship Normandy, whose photo amazes even the modern layman, set sail on May 29, 1935 from the pier in Le Havre. The public expected this flight to be a record. The Normandy could reach speeds of up to 30 knots. The passenger airliner traveled the first 774 nautical miles at an average speed of 29.76 knots. The ship broke the speed record on the fourth of June, when it crossed the Atlantic in just four days, three hours and two minutes.
Preparation for the presentation of a competitor
Soon, the Normandy was put on service to eliminate strong vibrations and improve the appearance of a competitor in the UK. In 1935, the ship Queen Mary was launched. It was announced that the ship would be the first with a tonnage exceeding 80,000 tons. Thus, Normandy would lose the title of the largest liner in the world. This was avoided due to the covered promenade on the boat deck, which increased the tonnage of the Normandy to 83,423 tons.
In the first flight, Queen Mary failed to break the speed record set by Normandy, but this happened in the late summer of 1936. A British passenger airliner crossed the Atlantic in less than four days. After improving the engines, the Normandy regained the title of fastest ship, but the English ship was still more popular. The Normandy never walked fully loaded with passengers, and traveling to Queen Mary was in demand. The competition might have continued, but the Second World War began.
Parking at Pier 88 in New York
The war was approaching in Europe, so it was decided to secure the ship "Normandy". Fears were confirmed the day after the ship became in New York. A competitor, the British liner Queen Mary, docked near the record holder. In March 1940, a new large ship joined the ships - Queen Elizabeth, which made a secret voyage across the Atlantic.
When France surrendered to Germany, the Normandy ship was arrested by US security. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the ship was accepted for service in the US Navy, and the promised compensation was paid. On Christmas Eve, the Americans renamed the passenger airliner to Lafayette. Like Queen Mary or Kiun Elizabeth, Normandy was planned to be turned into a transport ship. Re-equipment began right at the pier.
Passenger ship fire and wreck
The crash of the Normandy liner right at the pier in New York occurred due to carelessness of the workers, although it is believed that this was the work of either the American mafia of Italian origin or German intelligence. The catastrophe occurred on the ninth of February 1942. In the interior, a team of workers cut the bulkheads with gas burners when one of the sparks fired a pile of life jackets.
The fire spread very quickly. It turned out that the fire extinguishing system was turned off twenty-two days ago, so I had to wait for New York firefighters who arrived at the scene in twelve minutes. They could not immediately begin to localize and extinguish the fire, because panic among the attendants and workers running out of the Normandy prevented them.
On one side, dirty water from the Hudson began to accumulate on the boat deck. The ship tilted to the port side. The designer of the passenger liner Normandy Vladimir Yurkevich arrived at the scene and decided that there was a chance to make sure that the ship did not roll over. It was necessary to open the gate valves, blocking access to the ship system, which would allow the Normandy to carefully lay to the bottom, and not burrow under the pier. But Yurkevich was not even heard.
The roll increased at night, some areas continued to burn. Twelve days after the localization of the fire, it was decided to pump all the rooms with air to restore buoyancy. This meant that all masts, superstructures and pipes had to be cut. The vessel managed to be leveled only by November 1943. It took five million dollars.
The fate of the French "Normandy"
They wanted to convert the Normandy ship into an aircraft carrier, but the idea was abandoned because of the high cost. It was easier and cheaper to buy new ones. US President Roosevelt asked one of the leading American engineers to think over a project to transform Normandy into a passenger liner. The ship Normandy could be restored, but it cost too much. As a result, the ship was sold for just one hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
Russian engineer Vladimir Yurkevich tried to save his brainchild even after the Normandy could not be put out, knocked over, and then clumsily lifted. He turned to the leadership of the USSR with a proposal to purchase a ship for two million dollars. According to the most conservative estimates, the restoration of the ship would cost another twenty million. Yurkevich was refused: the country was weakened by the war and there was no money for such acquisitions. There were no harbors, routes or technical means to rebuild the ship.
Interesting facts about the transatlantic liner
At first, the shipbuilding company planned to build a second ship in pair with the Normandy, which would be called Brittany. Design stopped, and then the development of the ship had to be canceled altogether, due to the strong economic crisis in Europe and the ensuing World War II.
The ship "Normandy" was described in their works by Ilf and Petrov, Soviet co-authors. The documentary story "One-Storied America" was released in 1937. The authors introduced the Soviet reader to many cities of America, celebrities, the ordinary life of Americans of that time. Ilf and Petrov talked about some sports, visited the Mexican village and the Indian Wigwam, climbed the roof of the Empire State Building and went down into the caves of Carlsbad, visited the White House and spoke in detail about the production of films in Hollywood. The same work described the journey on the ship "Normandy".