The Haunted Files Case 4, The RMS Queen Mary

I talk about the haunting of the RMS Queen Mary and also go over the history of the ocean liner and possible reasons for why people believe it to be haunted or why it may actually be haunted.

1. Post author By Charlie October 20, 2020
The Haunted Files – Case #4 – The RMS Queen Mary
theweeklyrambler.com/the-haunted-files-case-4-the-rms-queen-mary/
Featured Photo: Source.
The Haunted Files explore haunted places, either that are famous or little known. I do
some research into the places history and talk about the apparent haunting and the
possible reasons for it from research collected on history and background and then
make a conclusion.
This shall be a 5-part series with one released each Tuesday.
RMS Queen Mary Design
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2. Original unedited photo by Don Ramey Logan from Wikimedia. CC
BY-SA 3.0. Source.
The ocean liner contained much on it for its passengers that included two indoor
swimming pools as well as beauty salons, kids’ nurseries and even dog kennels and
there were two dining areas, one of which was a three-story lounge, which also included
a giant map which tracked the progress of the ship on its route and the other
a Veranda grill that was more exclusive and could seat up to 80 people. There was also a
music lounge and a lecture hall and outdoor tennis courts and an observation bar. Of
course, there were also many cabins where the passengers stayed. The ship has twelve
decks.
The B Deck, originally third-class cabins are now 314 staterooms and 13 suites used as a
hotel for those wishing to stay.
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3. The ship overall is 1,019.4ft in length and 181ft in height. The ocean-liner’s power train
which took up the five lowest decks were once the largest in the world, which is where all
the machinery, boilers, engine gears and the such are located. It has 24 Yarrow boilers
divided up into four rooms with six each and 3 Scotch steamboilers in an auxiliary
boiler room. The ship has 4 Parsons single-reduction geared steam turbines. There were
two rooms for the electrical turbo generators and two engine rooms for forward and aft.
Then there is a water softening plant, a shaft alley to connect the ship’s steam turbines
to the propellers and finally a steering gear room.
The ship could travel a maximum of 32.84 knots but the typical service speed was 28.5
knots. The ship could hold a maximum of 2,139 passengers and 1,101 crew.
The History of the RMS Queen Mary
The RMS Queen Mary was a response to modernised ocean liners that were constructed
in Germany and launched in 1928 which were the SS Breman and SS Europa. Britain
did not want to be left behind in this shipbuilding race and so begun the journey to build
a rival ocean liner. Two rival British companies, The White Star Line and Cunard Line
made plans to build their own ocean liners.
White Star started first in 1928 and planned to call it the Oceanic while Cunard did not
begin building theirs until December 1930 which they had not yet given a name to. The
Great Depression caused problems for both ship companies with White Star cancelling
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4. its project first while Cunard had to halt its production in December 1931 which meant
abandoning a planned launch in May 1932 and then appealed to the British government
for a loan to continue the project.
Cunard was offered what they wished and more as they were offered a loan that would
allow them not only to build their current ocean liner but also to build a 2 one (which
would be called the RMS Queen Elizabeth), but the condition of the loan was that White
Star Line and Cunard Line had to merge together, which they did in May 1934 becoming
Cunard White Star Ltd. The deal enabled the construction to begin a month later and by
August it was finished and then launched on 26 September. The ship was then fitted
by the Bromsgrove Guild.
The ship was named after Mary of Teck who was Queen consort of King George V who
gave permission to Cunard to give that name to the ship. There is a legend that the
company had actually planned to name the ship Victoria (after Queen Victoria) to follow
the company’s tradition of having ship names end with ‘ia’ but that when it was asked of
the King if they could name the ship after “Britain’s greatest Queen”, King George V said
that Mary of Teck would be delighted, giving Cunard little choice without causing
offense to the King. Of course, being a legend, there isn’t much a way of proving if this is
actually what happened.
The ships fitting was finished in March 1936 where it then completed preliminary trials
and was then painted in Southhampton before finally being handed back to Cunard
White Star and then setting off on its first cruise in May of that year. The RMS Queen
Mary sailed from Southampton, to Cherbourg and then New York. By May 1937 the
RMS Queen Mary had carried almost 57,000 passengers. From 1936 until 1939 the
Queen Mary was a grand ocean liner and also carried a number of famous people such
as Hollywood celebrities, Duke and Duchess of Windsor and also Winston Churchill.
The RMS Queen Mary became the fastest passenger liner to cross the Atlantic allowing
it to take the Blue Riband (an unofficial accolade given to the fastest passenger liners to
cross the Atlantic in regular service) from France’s SS Normandie in August 1936,
although the SS Normandie reclaimed it for a time after being refitted with new
propellers in 1937 but the RMS Queen Mary soon took it back again in August 1938 and
lost it for a final time in July 1952 to the SS United States.
The outbreak of World War II prevented the RMS Queen Mary from doing anymore
cruises for a time and the ship went to Australia in 1940 to be converted into a troop-
carrying ship alongside several other ocean liners such as the RMS Queen Elizabeth, the
transformation included changes such as the ship being painted a
camouflaged colour and the luxuries being stripped from the ocean liner. It became
known as the Grey Ghost during this time and was the largest and fastest troop carrier.
During that time, it carried hundreds of thousands of Allied troops to theatres of battle,
this is also when the ship would be involved in a terrible and tragic disaster.
nd
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5. It was October 1942 when RMS Queen Mary was transporting around about 20,000
American troops from New York to Glasgow and was being escorted on the last leg of
the trip by the HMS Curacoa to provide anti-aircraft fire, both ships were making zig-
zag maneuvers to prevent U-boat attacks. At some point during the zig-zagging the
Queen Mary accidentally sliced right through the Curacoa and also caused its boiler to
explode, the Queen Mary was under orders to keep on going under any circumstances
due to the threat of U-boats.
The Queen Mary did though radio nearby escorting Destroyers who went back to the
area of the collision and managed to rescue 101 survivors, but 337 officers and crew still
died in the tragedy. The RMS Queen Mary received temporary repairs on arriving in
Scotland and then went to Boston for permanent repairs. It is of particular note that the
HMS Curacoa was assigned to the Harwich Force during World War One, my home
town. It is estimated that the RMS Queen Mary during its time as a troop transport in
World War II carried as many as 810,000 Allied troops in total.
After World War II the RMS Queen Mary was refitted back into an ocean liner and from
July 1947 it once again started carrying passengers on the regular across the Atlantic
Ocean. The RMS Queen Mary would operate for about two more decades until air travel
started becoming more popular and on top of that the ocean liner Queen Mary became
outdated for its purpose against other more modernized cruise liners that begun
operation and included more popular facilities and amenities and as such all this caused
loss of profit to Cunard by 1965 and the company retired and sold the RMS Queen Mary
and it left on its final voyage on Halloween 1967 and arrived in Long Beach, California,
USA on December 9 and has been moored there ever since. During its time as an
active ocean liner the ship carried as many as 2.2 million passengers in total.
After stopping forever in its permanent home now it has been transformed into a major
tourist attraction as a museum and hotel as well as restaurants and has become known
for its apparent haunted activity on board the ship.
The Haunting of the RMS Queen Mary
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6. Original unedited photo by fboyd from flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0. Source.
Once again just like many places on this list, the RMS Queen Elizabeth is said to be one
of the most haunted places currently residing in the United States and possibly even the
most haunted of all in the country. It is said as many as 150 spirits roam the decks and
rooms of the vast ocean liner turned maritime museum.
According to an article on the latimes website called “Voyage of the Ghost Ship Queen
Mary” there are 47 known deaths recorded in the ship’s logbooks, all of which the
deaths were recorded during the Queen Mary’s operation as an ocean liner. Deaths
during its operation as a troop carrier during the war were not recorded for security
reasons, and so the Queen Mary’s true death count is likely much higher due to the poor
and cramped conditions during its time as a troop carrier, many soldiers died from
heat prostration and also failed desertions. The article says at one point during its
operation as a troop carrier there was a burial at sea every 4-hours.
The vast majority of the 47 passenger/crew deaths as an ocean liner were natural
deaths, such as heart attacks, but some were more severe such as a seaman called
Pedder who was crushed to death by a mechanical door during an emergency drill and a
senior second officer called Stark who died after drinking cleaning fluid mistaken for
gin. All of this helps stoke the possibility of a haunting.
Ghosts have been reported retracing their last steps before death on the RMS Queen
Mary, such as down in the power train decks, there is telling of a ghost that will be seen
walking and vanishing at a door which crushed them to death.
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7. As well as this there are many reports of the typical things to expect from a haunting,
such as the slamming of doors, disembodied screams, unexplained knocking, smells
that materialize for no known reason before disappearing suddenly and baffling sudden
temperature changes, all of which are trademark of pretty much any kind of haunting.
Residual activity has been reported in the ship’s indoor swimming pools, of which are
no longer in use, despite this though there have been reports of ghostly figures standing
or walking about wearing old fashioned swimming attire, some have even claimed wet
foot prints materialize on the floors towards the old changing rooms or hearing the
sound of playful splashing from pool water that no longer exists.
Although there are no recorded drownings to have taken place in the Queen Mary’s
swimming pools, there is belief in the ghost of a girl called Jackie that haunts the ship’s
2 class swimming pool who many believe drowned there, it is said the sound of her
voice as well as her playful laughing can be heard.
Another well-known haunted area is the B340 stateroom that offers overnight stays for
guests looking to be spooked. The B340 was originally three third-class staterooms but
was made into a large guest room suite. The area has reported activity as far back as the
ship’s last voyage in 1967 with guests reporting unexplained knocks on the door during
the late night, lights turning on and off, sink taps turning themselves on and off, the
bathroom doors closing or opening by themselves, and more scarily guests having their
covers pulled off in the night by an invisible force or waking up to see a dark figure
standing at the foot of their bed.
What’s perhaps more startling is the room offers guests items that can be used to
amplify activity in the room, such as a Ouija board for example. Many believe such
items can make these hauntings worse or lead to ill/negative/physical effects for the
users or even attract darker entities to the location.
The Queen’s Salon is one of the many lounges of the RMS Queen Mary, offering a lavish
event space for those wishing to hire it out, but the place is also said to have its own
resident ghost, that of a lady in white who is said to sometimes be seen dancing about
the room, as if to some silent playing orchestra long gone. A lady in white type ghost is a
common motif of many haunted places.
The Conclusion
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8. Original unedited photo by mrarteest from Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0. Source.
Over its years of operation there has been several dozen deaths on the ocean liner as
well as its usage in the terrors of war and its involvement in the tragic disaster with
the curacoa during that war gives little reason to doubt there is some kind of haunting
on the ship. Not only that but the vast number of people who have travelled back and
forth on the ship has allowed it to remain a very active place, even now where it is
moored it continues seeing thousands and thousands of visitors per year, such energy
many believe from all of this combined can create the conditions for a residual
haunting, ghostly images and disembodied sounds embedded into the ship from times
long past that replay themselves when certain conditions are met.
The ship itself offers ghostly paranormal focused night tours and also continues to hold
séances for those interested in the paranormal. Paranormal investigators and TV shows
such as Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures have also been to the RMS Queen Mary to
capture evidence of the haunting. The B340 stateroom even offers guests a Ouija board
(something some believe can be dangerous if not used correctly) as well as tarot cards
and a crystal ball to enhance the haunted experience.
As well as that there is also little to doubt of their possibly being an intelligent haunting
as well due to the tragedy and horror that the ship has seen at certain points and events
in its vast history, many who have died in relation to the ship in some way may have
chosen to remain rather than passing over.
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9. It also really goes without saying that many believe attention to a possible haunting can
make such hauntings more severe as well as there having been seances held on the ship
when management eventually saw it as interesting for business and a way to possibly
attract further interest to the RMS Queen Mary due to the pop culture that now
surrounds the paranormal.
With all this in mind and the ship’s long history, the millions of people who have
travelled on it either for times of enjoyment and relaxation or times during the horrors
of one of the worst wars in history, gives much credence to a haunting existing.
Bibliography
http://www.queenmarycruises.net/queen-mary-ship/ – some RMS Queen Mary
historical information.
https://www.queenmary.com/history/ – history
http://ww2today.com/2nd-october-1942-troopship-liner-queen-mary-sinks-hms-
curacoa – RMS Queen Mary sinks HMS Curacoa.
http://www.queenmarycruises.net/rms-queen-mary/ – RMS Queen Mary contents
information.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-06-11-vw-4030-
story.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20count%20that%20I%20have,%2C%20things
%20like%20that%20.%20.%20. – RMS Queen Mary deaths
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ca-queenmary/ – haunting.
https://www.queenmary.com/hotel/rooms/b340/ – B340 stateroom.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2018/04/14/the-queen-mary-opens-up-its-
haunted-hotel-suite-for-an-overnight-ghostly-experience/#347ef7e3575b – RMS Queen
Mary modern information.
Thank you for reading the penultimate Haunted Files post before the main finale! Next
up we shall be going over a haunted castle close to the borders of Scotland –
Chillingham Castle!
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