"It was bizarre...on the way to a war."

Armies all throughout history have had a rigid class system that divides officers from the enlisted personnel. World War II was certainly no exception as Lt. Howard Zinn - later to be the famous historian and activist - experienced aboard the Queen Mary. He noted:

On that ocean crossing, the class system of the military was especially evident. Our nine-man crew, who had become good friends - no saluting, no "yessir and nosir" - were separated on board ship. The five enlisted men in the crew ate in the huge mess room, the usual grubby army food. We, the officers, ate in what must have been the first-class dining room of the Queen Mary - linen tablecloths, white-jacketed waiters, magnificent chandeliers, steaks and roasts. It was bizarre, with us sailing through submarine-infested waters on the way to a war.

I imagine that Zinn would have been surprised to learn that he and his fellow officers actually dined in the pre-war Tourist (Second) Class restaurant. The "huge mess room" that he wrote of (which would also be the setting for a defining moment in his life) was originally meant for the Cabin (First) Class passengers.

Regardless, however, this passage gives an idea of the way that soldiers were divided up on a wartime crossing aboard the "Grey Ghost."


References: Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002), 92.

The Medic & Bob Hope

Bob Hope and his wife Dolores returned to America aboard the RMS Queen Mary just as World War II was breaking out in September 1939. When the news officially came, the ship was put on full alert as her crew took every precaution necessary to avoid contact with one of Hitler's dreaded U-Boats. It was a bleak time to be sure, but with Captain R.B. Irving's permission, Mr. Hope performed in the First Class Main Lounge that night to try and raise his fellow passengers' spirits.

As World War II progressed, Mr. Hope became heavily (and quite famously) involved with the USO by putting on many comedy shows and helping to raise the troops' morale. The Queen Mary would transport him several more times during the course of the conflict, and the following passage tells of how one American medic was able to meet Old Ski Nose by accident. It comes from an autobiography entitled Warrior Without Weapons: An Army medic's life aboard the Queen Mary during World War II by Robert R. Copeland:

The Bob Hope Show traveled to England twice aboard the Queen Mary while I was doing my tour of duty. As usual, I was too busy in the hospital and missed all the shows. But I did meet both Jerry Colonna and Bob Hope personally, and while the incidents don't prove much of anything, they are occasions I remember vividly because of the famous personalities involved.

After discussing how he met Jerry Colonna "head-to-head rather than face-to-face," Mr. Copeland continues on:

My encounter with Bob Hope was equally unmemorable to anyone but myself. We were mid-ocean heading east and had so few patients that trip we closed the ward just off the lab. I was therefore very much surprised one evening when I went into the lab to get a report and heard some unusual noises in the vacant ward. I opened the door and switched on the lights, and there in the center of the room stood Bob Hope!

"How in the hell do I get out of this place?" he demanded.

I said, "No problem, Mr. Hope, I was just wondering how in the hell you got in...you must have come in through the wall."

"No I didn't. I was outside and saw that door there and just walked in quick-like to get out of the wind and rain...and it closed on me...and there's no knob to re-open it," he explained.

And it was true. There had been a cabinet in front of that door, so there was no knob on it. We never used it as a door, and I had forgotten it was there. I escorted Mr. Hope out through the lab, and in an effort to be friendly, and perhaps also to have something to tell my grandchildren offered him a tour of the hospital.

"No thanks...hospitals give me the creeps!" he said, and with that, Mr. Bob Hope left my life forever.

References: Robert R. Copeland, Warrior Without Weapons: An Army medic's life aboard the Queen Mary during World War II, ed. Martine H. Justak (Indianapolis: Griffing-Horne Press, 1989), 56-57.

"What the hell is this war all about, sergeant?"

The great ocean liners of the 1930s were mobilized as the Second World War erupted and plunged Europe into another bloody conflict. Perhaps the grandest of them all, the Queen Mary was activated as a troopship in March 1940. She began her service transporting ANZACs, but would become famous for carrying American GIs from New York to the Scottish port of Gourock.

The Queen Mary would ultimately carry over 800,000 troops to all corners of the world and play a role in every major Allied campaign of the war - most of her passengers were Americans. She would also take the world record for the most number of people ever embarked on a single ship: 16,683 in July 1943. That record still stands (which is probably a good thing). But since the U.S. Army wasn't integrated during this period, I've often wondered how black soldiers were treated aboard the Queen Mary. The bit of information that I've been able to find on the subject comes from Howard Zinn's autobiography, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train:

The officers on board were all given supervisory jobs, and mine was to "keep order" in the huge mess hall where the troops ate twice a day, in four shifts. The four thousand black soldiers on board, who slept in the depths of the ship near the engine room, ate last.

(It seems absurd - but is so typical of whites in this country - that I hadn't noticed the absence of blacks in basic training at Jefferson Barracks until one day I took a long walk through the base and found myself in an all-black environment. What I remember most vividly is a squad of black soldiers taking a break on the grass near me, singing "Ain't Gonna Study War No More!" I was startled. I had never heard white troops sing that.)

On the fifth day at sea, there was a mix-up, and the last shift was sent into the mess hall before the previous one was finished eating - four thousand black men pouring into the hall, filling in wherever other men had finished and left. It was now, accidentally, a racially integrated dining hall.

"Lieutenant!" A white sergeant, sitting next to a black man, was calling to me. "Get him out of here until I finish." This angered me, and for the first time in my military career I pulled rank. I shook my head. "If you don't want to finish your food, you can leave. What the hell is this war all about, sergeant?" It was a long way to the next meal, and the sergeant stayed and ate. I learned something from that little incident, later reinforced in my years in the South: that most racists have something they care about more than racial segregation, and the problem is to locate what that is.

References: Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002), 91-92.