How the most beautiful ocean liner ever built ended up as scrap

In October 1932, the first trans-Atlantic liner to exceed 300 metres was launched in the depths of the Great Depression. Exuding an aura of powerful majesty and national esteem, SS Normandie was the apotheosis of the colossal and elegant ocean liner. But her life would be cut short, a casualty of war, recklessness and discord.

The story of the rise and demise of the flagship of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, better known as the French Line, is a bittersweet chronicle.

The maiden voyage in May 1935 from Le Havre was mounted with masterly elan, and it was said that for five hectic days, the centre of Parisian society was to be found “somewhere at sea”. When Normandie arrived in New York, she was flying a 30-metre blue pennant (one for every knot of her average speed), as she had captured the record for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic – the Blue Riband – taking four days, three hours and two minutes.

Rivalry on the North Atlantic between Britain and France had reached fever pitch in the 1920s. The venerable Cunard Line had long been accustomed to supremacy, and was planning to build two immense and rapid ships. The French Line was not to be outdone, and in January 1931, the keel was laid for what was heralded as the “largest liner afloat”. An enthusiastic French government subsidised much of the 812 million French francs construction cost ($A1473 in today’s money).

A floating Versailles

The leading figures of French interior design were commissioned to create a masterpiece of the finest decorative arts from the period for the liner. Many consider the vessel to be the last great expression of the Art Deco era.

For the 848 first-class passengers, Normandie was a paean to panache. The designer’s innovative approach to bifurcating the exhaust ducts from the boilers, and positioning them to the side of the ship, allowed for expansive public rooms with long vistas through the centre of the vessel.

Longer than the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, the first-class dining hall soared three decks high and was illuminated by 12 Lalique glass pillars, flanked by 38 matching columns along the walls. Passengers entered through vast carved bronze doors that opened onto a stairway where ladies in chic gowns would pause fleetingly, giving the high seas society a nightly pageant of finery.

It was a similar scene in the equally imposing Grand Salon, where the beau monde would dance the night away. The Theatre, the first ever fitted to a liner, included a complete stage. The semicircular Winter Garden had exotic birds in bronze cages, fountains and five tapered levels. The two-deck-high indoor swimming pool was embellished with a frieze of Sèvres tiles.

As for accommodations, the Deauville and Trouville suites each had four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a living room, a dining room, a pantry, servants’ quarters and a private terrace overlooking the stern. Each of the 431 first-class staterooms was unique, with decor ranging from Louis XV to Bauhaus.

From an engineering perspective, the ship was a tour de force. Cutting-edge technology made Normandie the most powerful steam-turbo-electric propelled passenger ship ever built. A pioneering “whaleback” metal shell covered the foredeck, creating a hydrodynamic bow, and enabling the ship to maintain full speed in rough seas.

Normandie soon became the darling of the travelling elite crossing between the old world and the new. Ernest Hemingway, Noël Coward, Irving Berlin, Fred Astaire, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Boyer, Walt Disney, Douglas Fairbanks Jr and James Stewart were among the stars who enjoyed travelling the French way, savouring stellar gastronomy and premier cru wines. But, with the Second World War on the horizon, it was not to last.

Seeking sanctuary

On August 28, 1939, Normandie docked at pier 88 alongside the French Line terminal in New York, having completed her 139th trans-Atlantic voyage. Looming hostilities in Europe compelled the liner to seek sanctuary in the United States. Though no one knew it at the time, the incomparable ship was never to sail again.

As the war machine advanced and the Nazis conquered France, keeping Normandie safe in the still-neutral America seemed the most sensible course of action. The exquisite liner languished there for 27 months, tended to by a skeleton French crew of 115, her funnels capped and furnishings overlaid with dust covers. On Dec 12, 1941, five days after the attack on Pearl Harbour, Normandie was officially seized by the US government. Two weeks later, after being transferred to the command of the Navy Department, the tricolour was lowered for the last time, replaced by the Stars and Stripes. The leviathan was now known as the USS Lafayette.

After protracted debates among various US government agencies, it was decided that a conversion to a “convoy-loaded transport” for as many as 18,000 troops was the least expensive option. President Roosevelt ordered the Bureau of Ships to put everything of value into storage in the belief that the ship might someday return to her pre-war splendour. On Dec 24, 1941, legions of workmen from a local shipyard began stripping out the opulent interiors. At the same time, re-fashioning work progressed at a frenetic pace.

The transformation impacted the integrity of the ship’s safety systems. On the navigation bridge control, fire-alarm control switches were disengaged by a contractor tasked with modifying the instruments. When he left, he neglected to reconnect them – with disastrous consequences.

Disaster strikes

On Feb 9, 1942, disaster befell the ship. A welding crew was cutting down the four stately pillars that had been a feature of the Grand Salon … nearby were piles of burlap-wrapped lifejackets. Shortly after 2pm, a careless worker turned his acetylene torch on the final stanchion. Sparks flew everywhere, and in an instant flames ignited the combustible buoyancy jackets.

Spotting the fire taking hold, nearby workers brought a fire hose from an adjacent room, only to discover that it had a French fitting incompatible with every standpipe they could locate. A security officer arrived at the scene and tried to activate the general fire alarm. He was unaware that it had been disconnected. Confusion reigned. Down on the pier, a policeman spotted a sailor shouting: “There’s a fire on the ship.” The alarm was raised, and the New York fire brigade rushed to the pier. The battle to save the ship was underway.

Less than an hour after the fire broke out, a thick plume of dense black smoke was drifting over Manhattan. At the pier, Normandie’s entire superstructure was ablaze, and the 3000 hired hands on board were evacuated. The port side of the ship was deluged by relentless torrents of water from fire hoses, countless nozzles aboard fireboats, as well as overzealous fire tugs. Waterfalls cascading off the decks were captured in sweeping searchlights deployed on that dark winter’s night. The enormous volume of water began to take its toll, and the mighty ship started to list.

As the fire-ravaged hull tilted further, the gangways were torn away from the pier. They finally swung loose, and crashed against the ship’s black hull. Pier 88 had been transformed into a vast orgy of destruction. Overhead, Navy and Coast Guard aircraft circled the scene, capturing a macabre photographic record.

Around 12 hours after the fire started, Normandie, the pride of France, was in her death throes. The titan heeled over to port, and after one final lurch, the capsized hulk came to rest slantwise in the murky ice.

Four years later, Normandie’s charred, gutted remains would be put up for sale as scrap. The US maritime commission awarded the contract to Lipsett Inc. for a paltry $US161,680 (just over $A2 million in today’s money). Work began in October 1946 at the New Jersey scrapyard. Soon, the last vestige of the mammoth liner had vanished. From ostentation to desolation in 14 years.

Where to find relics of SS Normandie

Despite President Roosevelt’s edict to place the priceless interiors into safe storage, the job was botched and unregulated. Instead of being showcased in a heritage treasure trove, Normandie’s luxurious interiors and artefacts are dispersed across the globe like flotsam and jetsam.

At New York’s South Street Seaport Museum, the Maritime City exhibition features the burnt wheel that helmed the ship and the ash veneer baby grand piano from the Deauville Suite, as well as furnishings, photographs and ephemera.

Not far away at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, notable exhibits include gilded glass panels depicting allegorical vessels and mythical sea creatures that adorned the corners of the Grand Salon, as well as the Chariot of Poseidon mural. Another Art Deco wall relief, the Chariot of Aurora, is on display at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.

Two sets of massive doors featuring bronze medallions that once led into the Grand Salon now guard the entrance to Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Cathedral in Brooklyn Heights. Formerly reigning over the Dining Salon, the bronze statue entitled La Paix solemnly overlooks the Garden of Normandie at the Pinelawn Memorial Park in Farmingdale, Long Island.

At the birthplace of Normandie in St Nazaire, on France’s Atlantic coast, there’s a superb Escal’Atlantic museum that takes visitors on a virtual transatlantic voyage. Showpieces from the liner include four lacquer panels known as The Hunt that bedecked the first-class Smoking Lounge. There are also displays of specially designed Christofle silver, Lalique glass torchères and engraved glass panels made by la Cristallerie de Compiègne.

The Telegraph, London

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