RMS Majestic (1914)
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RMS Majestic, originally christened the Bismarck, was launched in 1914 and was, at 56,551 gross tonnes, the largest ship in the world until the construction of the French Line's Normandie in 1935.
The Majestic was built by the Blohm & Voss shipbuilders in Hamburg, Germany and was launched on 20 June 1914 by Countess Hanna von Bismarck, the granddaughter of the 19th century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The ship was to have been the flagship of the Hamburg America Line and the final of Albert Ballin's "Big Three" (the other two being the Imperator, which later became the Berengaria, and the Vaterland, which later became the SS Leviathan).
However, the First World War was to completely alter the ship's fate, and she never sailed under the German flag. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the as-yet uncompleted ship was awarded to White Star Line as compensation for the loss of RMS Britannic, which was sunk by a German mine in the Aegean in 1915.
However, the ship's handover went far from smoothly. Furious at being forced to complete the ship for British owners, the shipbuilders completed the ship in the colours of the Hamburg-America Line and with the name Bismarck painted on her bow. The workers even used the new British master's cabin as a storage closet.
The ship served as the flagship of the White Star Line from 1922 until 1934. After her May 1922 maiden voyage Majestic became one of the most popular liners afloat and in 1923 she carried more passengers than any other Atlantic liner. In 1924, 1926, 1928 and 1930 she carried more passengers than her sister ships. She earned the effectionate nickname 'Magic Stick'.
Due to a structural defect in the topsides, Majestic suffered a 100-foot crack in December 1924 and underwent permanent repairs and strenghtening along B-deck before returning to service in April 1925. (Small cracks were noted on her sister Leviathan around the same time but only minor repairs were carried out and she suffered a similar 100-foot crack five years later.)
In 1925 she completed an eastbound crossing at 25 knots, which was the fastest she ever managed, and faster than either of her sisters' best efforts. However, her older sister Leviathan often had a slightly higher average speed each year than Majestic.
In 1928 Majestic was extensively refitted and modernised and enjoyed a boom year for passenger lists, but numbers fell slightly in 1929 and then the Great depression set in by 1930.
Following the merger between the White Star Line and its traditional arch rival Cunard, which became public knowledge in summer 1934, Majestic served the new company until 1936. In 1935 it was announced that her sister Berengaria would be retired first, but the decision was reversed and Majestic was retired instead.
She served as the training ship Caledonia from April 1937 to September 1939. Shortly after the outbreak of war, she was damaged by fire and scrapped in 1942-44. The fire is not thought to have been a result of enemy action, and has been speculatively been attributed to faulty wiring.
[edit] Further reading
- RMS Majestic - The 'Magic Stick', by Mark Chirnside
- Atlantic Liners: A Trio of Trios, by J. Kent Layton
- Miller, William H. Jr., The First Great Ocean Liners in Photographs, 1984, Dover
- Fox, Robert, Liners, the Golden Age, 1999, Könemann
- McAuley, Robert, The Liners, 1997, Boxtree
