Ocean Liner Birthday Card – RMS Mauretania

The RMS Mauretania of 1938 was named after the great pre-WWI liner which had been retired in 1935. The first ship constructed by Cunard-White Star after the merger of 1934, the ship held several records. She was the largest ship to be built in Britain up to that time and was the largest ship to ever traverse the River Thames regularly and use the London docks. Not as famous as either its predecessor or the Cunard “Queens”, Mauretania II was designed for the London-New York trip from London’s King George V dock. But this route would be curtailed after the war with the ship only having entered service in 1939.

The ship did much good work during the war and took part in the Multi-Million Dollar Convoy of 1940 (see John Stewart’s painting Multi-Million Dollar Convoy). She returned to passenger duty in 1947 but with the cancelling of the London-New York route became a stand-in for the “Queens” at Southampton. Cruises from New York to the West Indies began in the winter months from 1947 and became the ships main role from 1962 until retirement in 1969.

Kevin Walsh’s Ocean Liner Birthday Card shows her in the London docks some time between June and September 1939.