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Nearly seventy-seven years ago, in September 1939, war in Europe had begun. The USA was still neutral. The great Atlantic liners were caught in limbo, a safe limbo -- the seas were suddenly unsafe, their scheduled voyages canceled and their passengers left worried and adrift.
In this view, taken from New York Central Railway yards in Weehawken, New Jersey, several liners are waiting along the West Side -- at "Luxury Liner Row". From the left, there's the Italian Line's Roma; then the Queen Mary, already being repainted in wartime gray; the Normandie; and then the Ile de France with another French liner, the Champlain, nested alongside. They were sitting, waiting, some to be called to duty carrying a different kind of passenger: soldiers.


My thanks to John Strange for this Article.