Cunard-White Star Line
| Cunard-White Star Line
|
|
|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | |
| founding | 1934 |
| resolution | 1949 |
| Reason for dissolution | bought up by the Cunard Line |
| Seat | Liverpool , UK |
| management | Percy Bates |
| Branch | shipping |
The Cunard-White Star Line was a British shipping company based in Liverpool , which was created in 1934 from a forced merger with partial participation between the Cunard Line and the White Star Line . In the 15-year existence of the Cunard-White Star Line, major passenger ships such as the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth were put into service . After Cunard had already taken over all shares in the White Star Line in 1947, the shipping company was completely taken over by Cunard Line and dissolved in 1949.
history
Emergence
During the Great Depression came with the Cunard Line and the White Star Line, two of the largest shipping companies in the United Kingdom in financial difficulties. There was no money to build on ships already laid down in the keel. The White Star was the Oceanic , and Cunard the Queen Mary . The Queen Mary could be completed with a considerable delay, while the construction of the Oceanic was stopped in 1929 and the unfinished hull was scrapped.
The British government supported the construction of the Queen Mary with financial injections of several million pounds. These were approved, so that construction, which had been stalled since December 1931, could be continued in April 1934. The condition for this, however, was a merger of Cunard with the financially even worse White Star Line, in order to secure both companies and thus also the jobs associated with them. As a result of the forced merger ordered by the state, the shipping companies that had rivaled each other for decades became the Cunard-White Star Line on May 10, 1934 with the consent of all parties involved. As a financially stronger partner, Cunard owned 62 percent of the company, White Star the remaining 38 percent.
The fleet of the new shipping company consisted of the existing units of the Cunard and White Star Line, but many of the older ships were sold or scrapped a short time later. The most famous of these ships included the Mauretania , two steamers of the Imperator class (the Majestic of the White Star Line and the Berengaria of the Cunard Line) and the Olympic, the sister ship of the Titanic, which sank in 1912 . In total, the Cunard-White Star Line owned 23 passenger steamers and one freighter fleet when it was founded.
Prewar years
The Queen Mary , which had been under construction for six years, entered service in 1936 and was henceforth the largest ship in the world. In the same year, the new steamer succeeded in winning the Blue Ribbon for the fastest transatlantic crossing. French Normandy previously held both titles . In 1939, the second Mauretania was followed by another important new building to supplement the transatlantic line. The third new building of the shipping association was the Queen Elizabeth , which was no longer completed in peacetime in 1940 and which had taken over the status of the largest ship in the world from her sister ship Queen Mary .
Second World War
During the Second World War , a large part of the Cunard-White Star Line's fleet served either as a troop transport, hospital ship or armed auxiliary cruiser. Several ships were bought by the British government and did not return to civil service even after the end of the war. Four passenger steamers and several cargo ships of the shipping company were lost in the war. In September 1942, for example, the Laconia was sunk by the German submarine U 156 , killing 1,658 people. When the Lancastria was sunk by units of the German Air Force in June 1940, according to various sources, between 3,500 and 6,500 people died, making this one of the ship losses with the highest number of fatalities in history.
Post-war years
After the end of the war, the Cunard-White Star Line put two combined cargo and passenger ships into service with the Media and the Parthia between 1947 and 1948 . The last new building for the shipping company was the Caronia , which went into service in 1949 and could be used both for transatlantic traffic and as a cruise ship .
In 1947, the Cunard Line, which was financially much better positioned than the White Star Line, took over their company shares. Nevertheless, the old name remained, mainly for administrative reasons. Two years later, the Cunard-White Star Line was dissolved and the existing fleet was taken over by Cunard. In homage to the White Star Line, the flag of the shipping company was hoisted on Cunard's ships next to the company's own flag until 1968. In addition, the last passenger ship in service on the White Star Line, the Britannic , wore the hull colors of its previous owner until it was retired in 1960.
The service area of the Cunard Line, which has existed to this day and has been part of the Carnival Corporation since 2006, still bears the name Cunard White Star Service in homage to the Cunard White Star Line .
fleet
Only the liner passenger ships of the shipping company are listed. Tender ships and freighters under the management of the Cunard-White Star Line are not mentioned.
| year | Surname | tonnage | shipyard | Status / fate |
| 1934 (1911) | Olympic | 45,324 GRT | Harland & Wolff , Belfast | Wrecked in 1935 |
| 1934 (1907) | Mauretania (I) | 31,938 GRT | Swan Hunter , Wallsend | Retired in 1934, scrapped in 1935 |
| 1934 (1907) | Adriatic | 24,541 GRT | Harland & Wolff, Belfast | Retired in 1934, scrapped in 1935 |
| 1934 (1913) | Ceramic | 18,713 GRT | Harland & Wolff, Belfast | Sold to Shaw, Savill & Albion Steamship Company in 1934, sunk in 1942 |
| 1934 (1913) | Berengaria | 52,117 GRT | AG Vulkan , Hamburg | Wrecked in 1938 |
| 1934 (1922) | Homeric | 34,351 GRT | Schichau-Werke , Danzig | Wrecked in 1936 |
| 1934 (1914) | Aquitania | 45,647 GRT | John Brown & Company , Clydebank | Retired in 1949, scrapped in 1950 |
| 1934 (1922) | Majestic | 56,551 GRT | Blohm + Voss , Hamburg | Retired in 1936, sold to the British Admiralty in 1937, broken up after a fire in 1940 |
| 1934 (1921) | Scythia | 19,730 GRT | Vickers , Barrow-in-Furness | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, scrapped in 1958 |
| 1934 (1922) | Samaria | 19,602 GRT | Cammell, Laird & Company , Birkenhead | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, scrapped in 1956 |
| 1934 (1922) | Laconia | 19,680 GRT | Swan Hunter, Wallsend | Sunk in 1942 |
| 1934 (1922) | Antonia | 13,867 GRT | Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness | Sold to the British Admiralty in 1942, scrapped in 1948 |
| 1934 (1922) | Lancastria | 16,243 GRT | William Beardmore and Company , Glasgow | Sunk in 1940 |
| 1934 (1923) | Doric | 16,484 GRT | Harland & Wolff, Belfast | Wrecked in 1935 after being damaged in a collision |
| 1934 (1923) | Franconia | 20,158 GRT | John Brown & Company, Clydebank | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, scrapped in 1956 |
| 1934 (1924) | Aurania | 13,984 GRT | Swan Hunter, Wallsend | Sold to the British Admiralty in 1942, scrapped in 1961 |
| 1934 (1925) | Carinthia | 20,277 GRT | Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness | Sunk in 1940 |
| 1934 (1925) | Ascania | 14,013 GRT | Armstrong-Whitworth , Newcastle upon Tyne | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, scrapped in 1957 |
| 1934 (1925) | Alaunia | 14,040 GRT | John Brown & Company, Clydebank | Sold to the British Admiralty in 1944, broken up in 1957 |
| 1934 (1923) | Calgaric | 16,063 GRT | Harland & Wolff, Belfast | never used for the shipping company, broken up in 1935 |
| 1934 (1927) | Laurentic | 18,726 GRT | Harland & Wolff, Belfast | only sporadically used from 1935, sunk in 1940 |
| 1934 (1930) | Britannic | 26,943 GRT | Harland & Wolff, Belfast | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, scrapped in 1960 |
| 1934 (1932) | Georgic | 27,759 GRT | Harland & Wolff, Belfast | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, scrapped in 1956 |
| 1936 | Queen Mary | 80,774 GRT | John Brown & Company, Clydebank | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, hotel ship in Long Beach (California) since 1971 |
| 1939 | Mauretania (II) | 35,739 GRT | Cammell, Laird & Company, Birkenhead | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, scrapped in 1965 |
| 1940 | Queen Elizabeth | 83,637 GRT | John Brown & Company, Clydebank | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, sunk after a fire in 1972 and scrapped in 1975 |
| 1947 | Media | 13,345 GRT | John Brown & Company, Clydebank | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, broken up after fire in 1989 |
| 1948 | Parthia | 13,362 GRT | Harland & Wolff, Belfast | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, scrapped in 1969 |
| 1949 | Caronia | 34,183 GRT | John Brown & Company, Clydebank | Taken over by the Cunard Line in 1949, scrapped in 1974 after shipwreck |
literature
- William H. Miller: Cunard-White Star Liners of the 1930s . Amberley Publishing Limited, Stroud 2015, ISBN 978-1-4456-4969-6 .
Web links
- Entry to the Cunard-White Star Line on chriscunard.com (English)
- Cunard White Star Service website with a brief history of the Cunard White Star Line
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eric Niderost: Voyages to Victory: The Queen Mary's War service. In: Warfare History Network. Retrieved May 2, 2020 .
- ^ Francis E. Hyde: Cunard and the North Atlantic 1840-1973: A History of Shipping and Financial Management . Springer Publishing, New York 1975, ISBN 978-1-349-02390-5 , page 292.
- ^ Cunard White Star Service. In: cunard.com. Retrieved May 1, 2020 .