John Delach

“There was no ship big enough to master the Atlantic Ocean. This included the Queen Elizabeth and I remember this one time when a big wave washed over the ship and took one of the lifeboats on the upper deck as if it was made of paper and smashed it into pieces. The North Atlantic and the Australian Bite were the two roughest bodies of waters that I was ever in.

“There were also many scams that were perpetrated on board the ships. Most of the fellows involved were from Belfast, but some from Dublin. One scam involved jackets. In summer, we wore white jackets, in the winter, navy blue jackets. They would go ashore with two jackets. They’d meet with fellows who wanted to come to America and give them one of the jackets. This was enough to get them on board and their buddies would arrange for places for them to hide for the five-day voyage. Nobody would know.

“The ship was that big. I came to understand how difficult it could be to find someone. I knew a fellow by the name of Peter Fox from Ballinamore and his uncle told me he had signed on to work on the liner. Even so, between the size of the Queen Elizabeth and time off between voyages, it took me three months to find him.

“If you were a Tourist Class passenger, you’d never see the First-Class passengers. Likewise, if you were Cabin Class, you never mixed. It was completely and utterly separate. The ships were constructed in sections. Separate blocks that were joined together and separated from each other by big steel doors cut into the bulkheads. Passageways connected each block, but if there was fog or a big storm, the crew would close those doors or the captain could close them automatically using switches on the bridge. The crew could open them manually by pulling the handle located on each door. If any section went on fire, they could shut off that area and flood it without any effect on the balance of the ship. This way the captain could secure the ship so that if anything hit it they could seal off that section.

“One of the most dangerous places on a passenger ship was the gangplank. A lot of people would be injured or killed coming up the gangplank late at night, especially fellows coming home drunk. The problem climbing up was at its worst at high tide when water lifted the ship way up above the pier. Then the angle between the pier and the ship would be very steep making the climb difficult to make even if the fellow was sober. In the old days the piers were made of wood and if a person fell into the water, they could climb back up onto the pier using the timbers for support. But then the newer piers were concrete with straight walls and no handholds. Unless a person was a fantastic swimmer, he would drown.

“The order to abandon ship had its own dangers. The ship would be stopped at sea, but the waves would affect the ship and it would swing from side to side as the waves came in. The life boats would be lowered on cables connected to the ship. At the bottom of the cables were hooks and, as soon as the boat hit the water, the crew had to unhook the cables and row as fast as you could away from the side of the ship. Otherwise, the next wave would smash the life boat into the side of the ship.

“I had moved to New York and I went down to the pier to watch the Queen Elizabeth sail to England for the last time. It was very sad. The British should never have sold the ship. There will never be another ship like the Queen Elizabeth again. The workmanship was magnificent and nobody could afford that degree of service ever again. There were nearly two crew members for every passenger carried.

“The plan was to turn the ship into a tourist attraction based in Florida, but when this plan fell through, C.Y. Tung, the Chinese shipping magnate bought the Queen and had it towed to Hong Kong for conversion to a floating school. Renamed, Seawise University, the old queen caught fire during the conversion and rolled over onto its side in the harbor. A terrible sight, the ship remained there for several years before being cut up for scrap.”