29th May, 2025 in Maritime, Military

Cunard ships at war

By David Humphreys

By Commodore Ronald W. Warwick OBE

Since the mid 1800s a number of Cunard ships have been requisitioned to support Britain during wartime.

Several Cunarders were requisitioned to support Britain during the Crimean War (1853–56). A total of fourteen Cunard ships served in the campaign. Of those, Arabia transported all the horses used in the Charge of the Light Brigade.

During the American Civil War (1861–65), the Cunard liners Australasia and Persia transported British troops to reinforce the British and Canadian position of neutrality. Cunard ships also served in the first and second Boer wars.

The company’s ships were central to British naval strategy during the First World War. The liner Mauretania (launched 1906) started the war by making several voyages transporting British soldiers to fight in the Gallipoli campaign. Aquitania (launched 1913) also served as a troop ship, after which she became a hospital ship evacuating casualties from Gallipoli. Both ships finished the war serving on the North Atlantic, carrying American troops to Europe, while transporting fare-paying passengers on their westbound passages.

Cunard’s transatlantic liner Carmania (launched 1905) was requisitioned in August 1914. She was converted into an armed merchant cruiser and fitted with eight 4.7in guns for defensive purposes. Carmania was ordered to the Caribbean, where she made history by participating in the first, and so far only, liner-versus-liner naval battle. This was against the German ship Cap Trafalgar, which like Carmania had been converted to an armed merchant ship. The two armed liners encountered each other off the coast of Trinidad in September 1914. Carmania fired a warning shot across the German ship’s bow. Cap Trafalgar’s response was to open fire on the Cunarder. Carmania responded, aiming fire at the waterline of the German ship, causing severe flooding and leading the Cap Trafalgar to roll on her side.

The Cunarder Lusitania (launched 1906) held the prestigious Blue Riband in 1908 for the fastest Atlantic crossing. However, while under the command of Captain William T. Turner she was sunk by the German submarine U-20 (Kapitän Walther Schwieger), south of Ireland in May 1915. Her sinking led to the loss of nearly 1,200 lives, turning public opinion in North America against Germany and contributing to the USA entering the conflict in 1917.

Other Cunard losses during the First World War included Ivernia, Andania, Aurania, Caria, Folia, Feltria, Franconia, Alaunia and Lycia. One of the last Cunard ships sunk by a U-boat in the First World War was Carpathia, sunk by U-55 (Commander Wilhelm Werner). Carpathia had become famous in April 1912 as the ship which responded to the SOS telegraphed by White Star Line’s Titanic after she struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage.

In the Second World War, the two Cunard Queens of that era – Queen Mary (launched 1934) and Queen Elizabeth (launched 1938) – were requisitioned. The two Queens were much faster than any other troopships during the war. After being launched, Queen Elizabeth went straight into service as a troop carrier. In 1940, Queen Mary sailed to Sydney, Australia, where she was converted to carry troops. She then carried Australian troops to Scotland via Cape Town. Between them, the two Queens delivered some 80,000 Australian soldiers to Suez and the Middle East. A port that the two ships visited en route was Freetown, then part of British Sierra Leone.

Throughout the latter part of the Second World War, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth plied the North Atlantic, bringing thousands of Canadian and American troops to the UK in preparation for the Normandy landings. ‘Mary’ and ‘Lizzie’, as they were affectionately known, made several transatlantic crossings, carrying as many as 15,000 troops on each eastbound voyage. On westbound crossings they carried wounded military personnel and civilian evacuees from the war in Europe.

German submarines were a constant threat during these crossings. Three Cunard ships were sunk by German U-boats during the Second World War. Two were torpedoed: Carinthia (launched 1925) and Andania (launched 1921). Laurentic (launched 1908) was sunk by a German mine. A fourth vessel, Lancastria (launched 1920) under the command of Captain Rudolph Sharp, was destroyed in June 1940 by Luftwaffe dive-bomber aircraft off the coast of St-Nazaire, France, while evacuating British troops and civilians. Estimates of total lives lost vary but number at least 6,000, the greatest loss of life on a single ship in British maritime history.

At war’s end, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary remained in service transporting troops, making westbound transatlantic crossings to return home some of the victorious troops to North America, and eastbound crossings to bring home British prisoners of war held captive by Japan as well as transporting fresh Canadian and American troops to garrison Germany.

Franconia (launched 1922) served as a troopship during the Second World War. In January 1945, she sailed to the Black Sea to serve as the base for the British delegation to the Yalta Conference between Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin. They met to discuss the final stages of the war and the post-war division of Europe. Meanwhile, Aquitania served on the North Atlantic, transporting troops from New York to the UK in preparation for D-Day. She was the only Cunarder to see service in both world wars.

Cunard suffered the loss of ships due to submarine attacks in the two world wars. In the Second World War, there was the additional risk of losing ships to aerial bombing. However, the two wars highlighted the significant strategic advantages that could be gained from using requisitioned ocean liners to transport troops to a theatre of war. At the end of the war, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, said:

The officers and men of the Merchant Marine by their dedication to duty in the face of enemy action as well as the natural dangers of the sea have brought to us the tools to finish the job. This contribution to Final
Victory will long be remembered.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Prime Minister Winston Churchill also spoke with great appreciation:

The Merchant Navy, with its Allied comrades, night and day, in weather fair or foul, faces not only the ordinary perils on the sea, but the sudden assaults of war from beneath the waters or from the sky. We feel confident that the proud tradition of our island will be upheld today, wherever the Ensign of a British Merchantman is flown.

Winston Churchill

After the Second World War, Churchill made several crossings on Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, which, he said, had helped shorten the war by at least a year.

Thirty-seven years after the end of the Second World War, there was no expectation that QE2 would become a troopship as so many Cunard ships had done earlier in the century.

Extracted from The QE2 in the Falklands War by Commodore Ronald W. Warwick OBE and David Humphreys