Normandy (ship, 1935)
 The Normandie in 1935
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The Normandie was a 1935 posed in service French passenger ship of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT), abroad also known as French Line. At the time of its completion, it was the largest ship in the world and has repeatedly been awarded the Blue Ribbon during its service life . Due to its sensational design in Art Deco style , its particularly generous amount of space and the clear lines of its external shape, it is still considered a milestone in passenger ship construction today . It is often referred to as the “perfect passenger ship”. During the Second World War , the ship was requisitioned by the US Navy as the USS Lafayette (AP-53) and was to be converted into a troop transport. It sank after a fire while the quay was being rebuilt in New York Harbor .
history
Keeled as hull No. T6 at the Chantiers de Penhoët shipyard in Saint-Nazaire at the beginning of 1931 , Normandy was supposed to start service on the transatlantic route as early as 1934. The launch took place on October 29, 1932, the christening was carried out by the wife of the French President Albert Lebrun .
Because fewer people were traveling due to the global economic crisis , the forecast number of passengers fell , and the CGT decided to postpone the commissioning until the following year. The test drives took place in May 1935 on the south coast of Brittany before Les Glénans. On May 29, 1935, the day of Normandy's maiden voyage from Le Havre to New York came, which she completed in the new record time of 4 days, 3 hours and 2 minutes at an average speed of 29.98 knots; With this she took over the prestigious Blue Ribbon for the fastest Atlantic crossing from the previous multiple title holder, Bremen . As she passed the Ambrose Lighthouse in New York , a thirty-meter-long blue pennant that had already been prepared by the CGT was unrolled at the top of the aft mast. This made Normandy the only verifiable bearer of a real Blue Ribbon. The return trip also turned into a record run: Cherbourg was reached after 4 days, 3 hours and 25 minutes at an average of 30.31 knots. This made the French Line the fastest ship in the world, in both directions. In March 1937, Normandy first improved the record to 30.99 knots in an easterly direction, followed by further accelerations to 30.58 knots (west) and 31.20 knots (east), which means the 4 days in each case Limit has been undercut.
technology
The 812 million francs ship was not only a high point in shipbuilding because of its speed. With a tonnage of 79,280 GRT (83,423 GRT after conversion in 1938) and a length of 313.58 meters, Normandy was also the largest and longest ship at the time and the first to be over 300 meters in length. It had taken 21 months to build the hull. The previous expansion to enlarge the slipway took even longer. The launch weight was 27,650 tons. The hull was the largest mass ever moved on land to date.
The Russian Vladimir Yourkevich was responsible for the draft of Normandy . The construction was unusual in some respects, as the cross-section of the fuselage was light but clearly pear-shaped. This resulted in a waist at the level of the waterline, which reduced the bow wave to a minimum and neutralized the turbulence on the flanks. During the test drives, the ship had easily reached an average speed of 31 knots. Local sardine fishermen were amazed to see that the ship did not cause a huge wake despite its outstanding size. The similarly dimensioned Queen Mary , built 4 years later, achieved 35,000 hp (27527 kW) more, a speed only half a knot higher than Normandy . This is clear evidence of the ingenious hull profile of Normandy .
All turbines received the steam with 2.8 MPa from 29 oil-fired vertical tube boilers. The tanks had a total capacity of 8,930 tons.
A special feature was the turbo-electric drive with 165,000 PSw (121,275 kW shaft power): The power of the drive machine was not transmitted from a mechanical shaft to the screw, but an electric one. Each of the four screws was driven by an electric motor, which received its energy from its own turbine set consisting of a steam turbine and a turbo generator . The reduction of the high turbine speed to just three ship propeller revolutions per second was thus possible without a complex gearbox. Another advantage was being able to switch to full reverse thrust at any time. After the first season, due to noticeable vibrations, the three-bladed propellers were replaced with those with four blades, which had proven themselves.
Furnishing
In addition, the extremely elegant external appearance of Normandy set new standards in the design of passenger ships, so that it is still regarded today as one of the most beautiful liners of all. She had a curved failing Steven . The stern was a modification of the old, oval gill stern . On the aft ship, the passenger decks were laid out in terraces so that all passengers - regardless of their class - could enjoy a clear view of the sea.
The Art Deco style interior of Normandy for a total of 1,972 passengers was sensational, and the ship was described as the "imposing floating Art Deco stage". The shipping company had brought in some of the most famous contemporary interior designers for the interior design, in particular Roger-Henri Expert , Jean Dunand , René Lalique , Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann , Louie Süe , André Mare and Raymond Henri Subes . The artists created mirrors framed in gold and silver, and Dunand lacquerwork depicting African fishermen, historic galleys and sea monsters were used as wall panels.
In particular, the ship's huge light-flooded dining room was legendary: the ventilation shafts of the ship's boilers were specially divided for this purpose, ran along the outer wall to reunite in the chimneys, and thus made a continuous hall of this size possible on a ship for the first time. From the stage of the theater with 380 seats, a novelty at the time on a ship, there was a 170 m view that was not disturbed by any partition. There were restaurants , bars , a sauna , a cinema , two swimming pools , one with a bar below deck, the other in the open air, as well as a chapel , a tennis court , a clinic with a dental clinic, a post office with a switchboard, an 80 m long shopping street as well as hobby rooms.
The elegance and the multitude of innovations that Normandy had to offer immediately made the ship one of the most popular liners on the Atlantic route, which did not change after Normandy was awarded the Blue Ribbon for the first time to the Queen Mary of Cunard in August 1936 Line had to give up. In 1937 Normandy was able to take back the trophy briefly, but in 1938 the Queen Mary finally got the prestigious title back.
The second World War
With the beginning of the Second World War , however , the success story of Normandy came to an abrupt end. The ship remained at its berth on the CGT Pier in Manhattan , New York, since the end of August 1939 . The Vichy government in occupied France asked for the ship back, but the United States did not comply and the ship was instead placed in the care of the US Coast Guard . After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the associated entry of the USA into the war, the ship was confiscated on the basis of an executive order and the owners were promised compensation. It was decided to convert the ship, which had been lying idle in the harbor for almost two years, into a troop transport . On December 16, 1941 at 2 p.m., the French tricolor was caught for the last time, and the ship, now under the US flag, was given the name Lafayette and the identification AP-53.
The conversion should go further than what the British carried out on the ships Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth . It seems that by doing this the USA, now the youngest nation to participate in the war , wanted to set a special sign of commitment and determination in a time of military successes of the Axis powers . The seizure of Normandy was a beacon for a "just war". Since there was no dry dock in New York at that time that could have accommodated such a large ship, the decision was made to carry out the renovation work on Pier 88, where it had been moored until then.
The fire
As part of the renovation work, however, aided by serious safety deficiencies and negligence, a fire broke out in the ship on February 9, 1942 while welding work in the large saloon . The fire was fueled by omissions and circumstances many months ago. The men of the US Coast Guard, who had been on board since mid-1940, were supposed to support the reduced CGT crew with the fire protection measures. Instead, the number of men on watch per patrol was reduced from 20 to eight. After the USA entered the war, the number was not increased. In addition, all lines, instructions and switches were labeled in French. An inspection of the fire extinguishers on board in January 1942 found that they had no operating instructions and that only half were in good condition. The French connection pieces of the fire hoses began to be exchanged for American ones. An verbal command to keep the compatible connections during the entire conversion phase was ignored.
Among the renovations, the installation of longitudinal among jocks against torpedoes , additional transverse bulkheads, mine protection devices, ammunition lifts and ammunition warehouses, cranes and searchlights. The large salon and the smoking salon were also to be combined into one large hall by removing the fireproof partition walls. Several thousand life jackets were stored in large bales in this hall . The vests were filled with oil-impregnated kapok , a seed fiber that has very good swimming properties but is particularly easily flammable . In the large salon, the four large columns of light had to be removed with cutting torches . The resulting flying sparks were shielded with asbestos-reinforced steel shields. Contrary to the instructions given, neither fire extinguishers nor fire hoses were laid out, nor was a fire watch present. There were only two buckets of water. At the last cut around 2:37 p.m., the asbestos shield was pulled away too early and incandescent steel fragments rained down on the life jackets, which immediately caught fire. A worker tried to extinguish with a bucket of water, but stumbled and fell. A fire hose brought in quickly was useless because the water pressure was insufficient. Another worker appeared with a fire extinguisher but was unable to operate it. Attempts were made to put out the flames with bare hands and jackets. Burning bales were thrown into the central nave to be extinguished there. However, this only led to an even faster spread of the flames. There was complete confusion, as many of the workers in the construction company hardly knew the ship. They had to work their way outside in dark and smoky corridors. Amazingly, there was only one dead. In the rush, several openings in the hull just above the waterline were not closed. This should be of particular importance later.
The New York Fire Department responded within twelve minutes and brought a total of 43 fire departments to Pier 88 within an hour.
The James Duane fireboat appeared from the harbor side and began to fight the fire. Around this time, the engine room in Normandy had to be evacuated due to the heavy smoke development . The boiler firing was stopped, with the result that the steam pressure dropped to zero within 15 minutes and the bilge pumps could no longer work. They were the only ones who could have carried the incoming fire-fighting water back outboard.
The fire developed so much heat that the lead sheath of the electrical cables melted into streams and solidified into lumps in the extinguishing water, which clogged the scuppers . The watertight doors on the upper decks had been properly closed. This created an effective reservoir. At around 3:25 p.m., when the Normandy captain , Simmers, appeared, she was already listing 15 degrees to port towards the harbor basin. Several iron bollards had been torn from the pier by the cables . Since there was no uniform operational management that could have coordinated the helpers on land and in the water, everyone pumped as much water into the ship as they could. By 6:00 p.m. the list was 16 degrees and the fire was extinguished. A three-hour break followed. By 9:00 p.m., however, further harbor water had penetrated through the open doors just above the waterline, which increased the list to 20 degrees. At 11:30 p.m. it was almost 40 degrees. At 00:30, all crews were ordered from the ship. Now all you could hear was the roar of emergency light generators and the crack of cracked harbor cables. From 1:40 p.m. the rumbling of countless objects such as lifeboats, cranes, tanks, tools and other furniture that was still in place and making their way towards the port side could be heard. At 2:45 p.m. the torso lay on its side.
The disproportion between the amount of water pumped in by the fireboats and the firefighting trains on the quay had ultimately become the undoing of Normandy .
Due to the high level of awareness and the importance that the Americans attached to Normandy , news of the fire spread very quickly in New York. Large numbers of well-meaning volunteers, including air raids, volunteer firefighters, and female auxiliaries, rushed in from all parts of the city and from New Jersey. Since they were denied assistance, they acted as guardians of the scene of the accident without being asked. Among the hundreds denied entry to the ship was a man who wept in desperation when he was turned away: it was Vladimir Yourkevich, the ship's designer.
The rumor arose that the fire broke out as a result of sabotage by German spies , on which the claim is based to this day that the American government had contacted the imprisoned mafia boss Lucky Luciano to avoid further attacks .
The recovery
Following the disaster, the Normandy wreck lay in the mud of the New York harbor for months, while the responsible authorities blamed each other for the debacle. The wreck was a not to be missed memorial to the inability of the authorities, so that they had a four meter high plywood wall erected as a privacy screen along 12th Avenue.
There were numerous suggestions for recovery. A coffer dam was to be built around the wreck so that one could work in the dry. The proposal was rejected with reference to the shortage of steel and a threat to the neighboring piers. It was also discussed to cut up Normandy on site and leave the parts of the ship that were deeper than twenty meters there and cover them with gravel and sand. Ultimately, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia decided that nothing should be left on the pier that could affect its use. The recovery was inevitable. To a similar extent as in the fire, many patriotic Americans felt called upon to submit proposals for salvage. And again the help offered was mostly useless. One absurd plan, for example, was to fill the berth with water, which - frozen to ice - clasped the hull. Then the huge block of ice was to be dragged to the George Washington Bridge and attached to it with tight cables at high tide. The following ebb will cause vertical thrust - with simultaneous melting of the ice - so that the ship will straighten up. Such suggestions were collected internally in the so-called insane card index. Officially, all senders received a polite letter stating that their suggestions would be considered.
The concept of the navy was theoretically simple, but the implementation was very difficult: They wanted to remove all the superstructures, clear out the rubble, create several watertight compartments and pump out the water. The ship's erection moment would do the rest. Reliable information was obtained from an engineer of the French merchant navy from occupied France, who confirmed the assumption that Normandy would have a high self-aligning torque - higher than any other ship in the French Line. From the fire disaster one had learned about the still existing fire hazard - there were still fuels and oils on board. There were now at least 25 firefighters patrolling the ship around the clock.
The extent of the recovery was huge, depending on the size of the ship. 4,000 kg of glass were removed, 10,000 cubic meters of mud was pumped out and 250,000 wooden dunnage was used for support and as hatch covers. Numerous divers, who for safety reasons always had to work in threes, closed countless openings and cracks by welding or sealing. On August 4, 1943 at around 1 a.m., the ship began to be pumped out for a long time. On September 12, the Lafayette had straightened up to a 45 degree angle. With the help of geared winches placed on the bank, the ship almost completely straightened up to a list of 2 degrees three days later.
The salvage had cost the Navy 11 million dollars.
The original plan to convert the ship into a troop transporter was no longer implemented, as the damage to the hull could only have been repaired with far greater financial expenditure. The ship remained in the final years of the war as an empty hull on a pier in Brooklyn and was finally scrapped in Port Newark in 1946 when the French government showed no interest in taking it back after the war. The Lipsett Corporation was awarded the contract for the scrapping at a price of 160,000 dollars. Lipsett made a million dollar profit from the exploitation. It was renamed one last time for the short drive to Newark , Lipsett . Numerous furnishings on the ship, which had been removed and relocated before the planned renovation, have however survived, are scattered all over the world and are sometimes coveted collector's items.
Reception in art
In Alfred Hitchcock's film Saboteurs from 1942, capsized Normandy is shown in a short shot. There it represents another ship, the destruction of which is represented by this scene (the bad guy drives a taxi, cut to the ship, cut back to the smiling bad guy).
AM Cassandre's depiction of the ship on large-format posters in the Art Deco style also made the ship well known in the visual arts. The posters of the ocean liner, which is significantly elevated due to its extreme underside and thus appears even more gigantic, are among the most exciting posters of the 1930s according to critics. Norbert Wolf particularly emphasizes the contrast between the monumentality of the ship and the simple contours, the proportional geometry and the choice of advertising font .
literature
- Stefan Ehmke: Passenger ship Normandy: Once the pride of France . Stade, Kiel 2005.
- John Maxtone-Graham: The way across the Atlantic , the only connection between Europe and America; the golden era of the great luxury liners (original title: The Only Way to Cross translated by Antoinette Gittinger). Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-18093-3 (= Heyne-Bücher , Volume 19, Heyne-Sachbuch , No. 741).
- Hans-Joachim Rook: The hunt for the Blue Ribbon , shipowners, races and records. Transpress, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-344-70720-5 .
- Robert D. Ballard , Ken Marschall : Lost Liners - From the Titanic to Andrea Doria - the glory and decline of the great luxury liners . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag GmbH & Co., Munich 1997, ISBN 3-453-12905-9 (English: Lost Liners: From the Titanic to the Andrea Doria. The ocean floor reveals its greatest lost ships. Translated by Helmut Gerstberger).
Movie
- Mathias Haentjes, director: ocean liners - golden years. Documentation about the era of the Atlantik-Liner , Germany, 2019, Radio Bremen , 52 min. (Image and film material about "Titanic", " Britannic " (wreck), from Cherbourg from Gare Maritime , from the Hapag-Hallen in Cuxhaven, on " Queen Mary 2 ", "Normandie", " United States " - Philadelphia, " Ex-Astoria " - the oldest traveling passenger ship in this category. Information from the broadcaster arte about the film, accessed on Feb. 27, 2020)
Web links
- Normandy - the French jewel
- Very elaborate site on Normandy with a 3D model and many photos ( memento from March 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
Footnotes
- ^ Normandy (1935) Fakta om fartyg (Swedish)
- ↑ Normandy was originally to be named La Belle France .
- ↑ a b Icons of Art Deco. In: Norbert Wolf : Art Deco. Prestel Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-7913-4763-9 , pp. 19-20.
- ↑ a b Norbert Wolf : Art Deco. Prestel Verlag, Munich 2013; Pp. 16-17. ISBN 978-3-7913-4763-9 .