Paris (ship, 1921)
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The Paris was a transatlantic passenger steamer of the French shipping company Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT) put into service in 1921 , which carried passengers , freight and mail from Le Havre across the North Atlantic to New York . She was the largest passenger ship under the French flag when it was commissioned. On April 19, 1939, she burned down on the jetty in Le Havre and sank in the harbor basin. The wreck was only scrapped after the end of the war.
The ship
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After the ocean liner France was put into service in 1912 and had proven to be very popular with customers, the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique wanted to build on this success and ordered another new build from the shipyard Chantiers de Penhoët in Saint-Nazaire , which was even larger and should be more luxurious than its predecessor. As early as 1913, the keel of the new ship was laid in Penhoët , which was to be christened Paris .
However, with the outbreak of World War I , construction work was delayed. On September 12, 1916, the unfinished ship was hurriedly launched to make room for the construction of ships of greater importance to the war effort. It was towed to Quiberon Bay on the Bay of Biscay , but work on the ship did not resume until 1919. Two years later, on June 5, 1921, the Paris was finally completed.
As with France , the Parisians did not focus on speed and competitiveness in the struggle for the Blue Ribbon . More emphasis was placed on luxurious equipment and comfort. In the lounges and cabins, Art Déco and Art Nouveau predominated alongside the more traditional, splendid styles of the turn of the century . The French interior architect and designer Georges Rémon (1889–1963) was responsible for the interior and designed the interior fittings on many CGT ships.
Many of the cabins had rectangular windows instead of portholes , which made the rooms more bright. In the first class, every cabin was equipped with a telephone, which was not yet standard at the time. A servant could also be accommodated in an adjoining room. The first-class dining room spanned three decks and was topped with an expansive skylight to let in natural light. There was space for 1930 passengers on board, of which 560 were in first, 530 in second and 840 in third class.
With a top speed of 21.8 knots, she was slower than the France , but with a volume of 34,569 GRT she was the largest ship under the French flag to date (only six years later she was surpassed by the Île de France (42,050 GRT)) . The 232.96 meter long and 26 meter wide ship had two masts , three chimneys and was powered by Parsons turbines that acted on four propellers and produced 45,000 hp. The turbines were fired with fuel and no longer, as before the war, with coal. In contrast to France , which was known for rolling in calm seas , the Paris did not have this problem.
period of service
On June 15, 1921, the Paris left Le Havre on her maiden voyage to New York. The early years of her service were uneventful and the CGT saw very profitable times through France , Paris and Île-de-France in the 1920s. On September 21, 1921, the Paris departed from Le Havre with General John J. Pershing on board, and Marshal Ferdinand Foch boarded the ship for New York on October 22, 1921 .
In October 1927 the Paris collided with the Norwegian cargo ship Bessegen on the way to New York , which then sank . 12 crew members of the Bessegen were killed. In April 1929 the Paris ran aground near Brooklyn , but was not damaged. Tugs that were initially called for help could not get the ship afloat; swimming was only possible after the passengers and part of the cargo had been disembarked. But only four months later, on August 19, 1929, the ship suffered enormous damage from a fire on board at the landing site in Le Havre. Almost all of the passenger areas were destroyed by the fire . However, the ship was considered too new to be sold for demolition. The repairs took almost half a year. On January 15, 1930, the Paris was back on the route Le Havre - Plymouth - New York.
During the time of Prohibition in the United States , the Paris and other French ocean liners were particularly popular with US passengers, as alcoholic beverages could be served on board .
In May 1932, the passenger classes were switched to first class, tourist class and third class. In the 1930s the Paris was increasingly used for cruises , for example in the fall of 1931 from New York via Bermuda to Halifax followed by three trips from New York to the Mediterranean in 1932. From May 17, 1938, it replaced the Lafayette , the two It was burned out weeks earlier in the dry dock in Le Havre.
The fire
Less than a year later, the Paris , which was still the third largest ship in the CGT fleet after the Île de France and Normandy , was itself a victim of a devastating fire. On April 18, 1939, when the steamer was lying at the roadstead in Le Havre, around 10 p.m. a fire broke out in the on-board bakery on deck A, due to circumstances that have not yet been clarified, which quickly spread to the entire ship. The fire spread so quickly that there was no time to drag the Paris out of the dock. Five hours after the fire broke out, the cabins burned along the entire length of the promenade deck .
At the time there were valuable art treasures on board that were to be brought to New York. These could only just be rescued and loaded onto the Champlain , another CGT Atlantic liner. As in the case of the burning Normandy in 1942, too much fire fighting water was pumped into the hull of the Paris . Due to the closed watertight doors, the water could not penetrate the lower areas of the hull, so the ocean liner became top-heavy and capsized to port at 09.15 a.m. the following day . There was no personal injury, but the ship was a total loss.
The Paris sank so badly in the shallow harbor basin that it could no longer be straightened. Their chimneys and masts protruding from the water prevented Normandy , which was in the immediate vicinity during the fire, from leaving their dock. Two days after the fire, the chimneys and masts were cut off to free Normandy .
The Paris was in the port of Le Havre on her port side for the entire duration of the Second World War . In December 1946, the former NDL steamer Europa , which had come to France as a reparation payment after the end of the war and was now lying in the neighboring dock under the name Liberté , broke loose in a storm, collided with the wreck of the Paris and sank on a level keel. The Liberté was only lifted and repaired in April 1947 . In the same year, the Paris was finally scrapped after eight years in the mud of the harbor basin.
Web links
- Technical data and information on working hours on the CGT website (French)
- Detailed illustrated description of the ship
- A summary of the ship's biography on greatships.net
- Photo collection
Individual evidence
- ↑ A luxury steamer ran aground . In: Vossische Zeitung , April 7, 1929.