Normandie Burns in New York
THIS DAY IN HISTORY 1942
Normandie Burns in New York
The Normandie, regarded by many as the most elegant ocean liner ever built, burns in New York Harbour during its conversion to an Allied troop transport ship. Built in France in the early 1930s, the Normandie ruled the transatlantic passenger trade in its day. The first major liner to cross the Atlantic in less than four days, its masterful engineering was only surpassed by its design excellence. The 1,000-foot ship's distinctive clipper-ship bow was immediately recognizable, and its elaborate architecture and decorations popularized the Modern style.
After America’s entrance into World War II, it was seized by the U.S. Navy for the Allied war effort and renamed the U.S.S. Lafayette. However, on 9 February 1942 - just days before it was to be completed for trooping - a welder accidentally set fire to a pile of flammable life preservers with his torch, and by early the next morning the ship lay capsized in the harbor, a gutted wreck. It was later towed south to New Jersey and scrapped.
Origin
The beginnings of Normandie can be traced to the Roaring Twenties when shipping companies began looking to replace veterans such as RMS Mauretania (1906) and RMS Olympic (1911) . Those earlier ships had been designed around the huge numbers of steerage-class immigrants from Europe to the United States. When the U.S. closed the door on most immigration in the early 1920s, steamship companies ordered vessels built to serve upper-class tourists instead, particularly Americans who traveled to Europe for alcohol-fueled fun during Prohibition.Companies like Cunard and the White Star Line planned to build their own superliners to rival newer ships on the scene; such vessels included the record-breaking Bremen and Europa, both German.The French Line began to plan its own superliner.
The French Line's flagship was the Ile de France, which had modern Art Deco interiors but a conservative hull design.The designers intended their new superliner to be similar to earlier French Line ships. Then they were approached by Vladimir Yourkevitch, a former ship architect for the Imperial Russian Navy, who had emigrated to France after the revolution. His ideas included a slanting clipper-like bow and a bulbous forefoot beneath the waterline, in combination with a slim hydrodynamic hull. Yourkevitch's concepts worked wonderfully in scale models, confirming his design's performance advantages. The French engineers were impressed and asked Yourkevitch to join their project. Reportedly, he also approached Cunard with his ideas, but was rejected because the bow was deemed too radical.
The French Line commissioned artists to create posters and publicity for the liner. One of the most famous posters was by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, who was also a Russian emigrant to France. Another poster by Albert Sébille, showed the interior layout in a cutaway diagram 15 feet long. This poster is displayed in the Musée national de la Marine in Paris.
Source : Wikipedia
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