[music playing] ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): Extraordinary.

Iconic.

Lethal.

These incredible ships have told our story for the past 400 years and defined what it means to be part of our island nation.

I'm Rob Bell, and in this series, I'll be exploring Britain's greatest ships.

This time, I discover the astonishing story of the Queen Mary, built to rule the Atlantic in style, but thrown into chaos that shook the world.

[ships cannons] A true survivor, she faced down formidable foes and went on to win the hearts of two nations.

[waves roaring] [majestic music] This is the Queen Mary.

For the past 50 years, this legendary British ship has been winning hearts and minds here in Long Beach, California.

The Queen Mary just has something that you can't build into a ship.

PETER KNEGO: Queen Mary is a special ship because there's absolutely nothing like her in the world today.

She was a hero.

BRUCE VANCIL: The Queen Mary I would put on a par with the pyramids, Eiffel Tower, any other incredibly iconic human success story-- human accomplishment-- in the world.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): Now a popular hotel and tourist attraction sitting peacefully in the California sun, it's hard to imagine how this ocean liner helped Britain through its most desperate times.

In fact, it's a miracle she's still here at all.

Her survival is all down to two simple things.

She was one of the biggest and fastest liners ever built.

Standing here right next to her, you get a real sense of her astonishing size.

1,019 feet long, 118 feet across.

And at 181 feet tall, she's the height of an 18-story building.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): She's nearly twice the weight of the Titanic, and is bigger than any Royal Navy warship.

To grasp the size of this monumental liner, I'm finding the highest viewpoint I can, but I'm going to need a firm grip and a head for heights.

I'm not even halfway up.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): The lead funnel is about 70 feet above deck.

Oh, yes.

The view up here is absolutely spectacular.

You can see for miles and miles.

But what it also gives you is a bit of perspective about the scale of this ship, as well.

Unbelievable.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): This massive ship once carried the most passengers on a single voyage in history, a record that's still unbroken today.

But the Queen Mary is no lumbering brute.

Her elegant and graceful design, coupled with the most powerful steam engines ever built, means that she's pretty speedy, too.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): In her day, the Queen Mary could cross the oceans at over 31 knots, a speed that few liners can match even now.

To see how this was possible 80 years ago, I have a chance to inspect her once-beating heart.

This is one of two engine rooms on board, and just look at the size and the scale of this place.

All the ductwork and pipes, the condensers, these turbines, everything is just massive.

In fact, the Queen Mary has the largest power train ever built on board a ship.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): This power train, all the engines, boilers, and transmission systems, took up most of the space below the waterline.

BRUCE VANCIL: The Queen Mary is taking a 12-story building a fifth of a mile long and pushing it through water at speeds of of 29, 30 knots or more.

That's incredible-- for 24 hours a day.

That's a real feat.

And it's just raw power.

ROB BELL: In total, the Queen Mary could produce 200,000 horsepower.

That's about the equivalent of 200 Formula One cars today.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): Built only 20 years after the Titanic, these engines were four times as powerful.

Once this 1,000 foot long giant was up to her record-breaking speeds, other vessels needed to give her a wide berth.

To help avoid any collisions, her three steam whistles weigh a ton each, and they have a voice to match.

[horn blast] Not only can this frequency be clearly heard 10 miles away, the reverberations from it can be detected up to 100 miles away.

And I'm not surprised.

[horn blast] The trick is to design a whistle that will operate at a very low frequency, so the sound will travel far and wide, but it won't damage any nearby human ears or be otherwise disruptive to the ship's passengers.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): When it comes to the comfort of her passengers, the Queen Mary is renowned for hitting just the right tone.

PETER KNEGO: She was really magnificent, the beautiful glowing woods and the etched glass and the nice artworks.

And you know, nothing too pretentious, just that right touch that made people comfortable and want to come back.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): Paintings, sculptures, and sumptuous furniture were all commissioned especially for the ship, and this floating art deco masterpiece was a proud symbol of empire.

Her intricate inlaid veneers were made from 56 different varieties of wood, symbolizing every country in the Commonwealth.

The Queen Mary is the last surviving ocean liner from this bygone age, and she now draws thousands of visitors to Long Beach every year.

But how did an 80-year-old British ship becomes such a part of the landscape here in America?

She survived against staggering odds.

But this incredible ship very nearly never sailed the waves at all.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): The Queen Mary was commissioned by the British shipping company Cunard in the 1920s.

She was their attempt to cash in on a new market-- the transatlantic tourist.

In previous decades, it was poor emigrants sailing to America who were big business for the British shipping companies.

But in 1924, the US suddenly tightened up immigration, wiping out the profit from steerage class passengers overnight.

SHAWN DAKE: Steerage was kind of on its way out because the immigration quotas became more severe.

So some ships went to just one class, and then others turned to the tourist trade.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): But companies like Cunard had a problem.

Middle class tourists didn't want to travel on steerage ships, and not everyone could afford first class.

Cunard was operating these beautiful old Edwardian liners.

They were sort of like museums afloat.

They were past their prime.

They had their day.

But people looked at them sort of like well, you know, what are you going to do now?

Because these ships can't last forever.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): In 1926, Sir Percy Bates, the Deputy Chairman of Cunard, has an idea to change the way middle class tourists travel, make the voyage just as exciting as the destination.

ROB BELL: Bates' idea is to build a new breed of ocean liner, the Superliner, bigger, faster, and more elegant than anything seen before.

But Bates isn't the only person with such ideas.

Others have beaten him to the punch.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): Germany and Italy launched their own superliners, capable of carrying over 2,000 passengers across the Atlantic in under five days.

LES STREATER: Britain needed at least one or more new ships to show that they could do as well, if not better, than the other countries.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): In 1930s, construction of Cunard's Superliner begins on the Clydebank in Scotland.

36,000 tons of metal will go into her hull alone, and the whole ship will be joined together with 10 million rivets.

And in a race to show the competition how it's done, they only give themselves two years to do it.

ROB BELL: Across the channel, one of Cunard's greatest continental rivals, the French outfit-- Compagnie Générale Transatlantique-- or CGT, have begun constructing their own superliner.

And CGT's design for their ship, the SS Normandie, will match Cunard for size, speed, and elegance.

[music playing] Well, the rivalry was fierce, just as much as between the two countries.

These were both ships of states.

They were symbols of the nation itself.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): But Clydebank's workers soon show that British shipbuilding is still a force to be reckoned with.

Remarkably, in just 12 months, the work on the hull is almost completed.

But any celebrations are to be short lived.

A global catastrophe is unfolding that puts the future of this revolutionary ship in serious doubt.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): In the aftershocks of the catastrophic stock market crash of 1929, Cunard runs out of cash.

With a half-finished ship known only as Hull 534, they have no choice but to pull the plug.

3,500 shipbuilders are laid off, and the gates to the shipyard chained shut.

Hull 534 is abandoned and left to become a rusting hulk.

The dream of the Queen Mary appears to be over.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): With no British shipping companies having the money to build modern superliners, this half-finished ship looks set to become a headstone for the UK's dominance of the Atlantic.

Cunard Chairman Sir Percy Bates heads to Parliament to ask for financial assistance to prevent his British superliner project ending up on the scrap heap.

LES STREATER: The government eventually agreed to provide a loan to Cunard for completion of the ship, but they laid down a number of strings to the loan.

The main condition was that Cunard was to merge with White Star Line, their biggest competitor, who was in similar financial troubles at that time.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): 2 and 1/2 years after the new superliner was abandoned, workers marched triumphantly back into the Clydebank shipyard.

But the task that lies ahead of them is daunting.

130 tons of rust will have to be scraped from the hull before they can even try to catch up with the foreign shipbuilders.

Four years after construction began, Britain's first modern superliner is about to be launched.

Both King George and Queen Mary herself are in attendance, along with a quarter of a million spectators braving the pouring rain to witness the biggest hull ever built take to the water, a task which will prove to be no mean feat.

The Queen Mary is so big, the River Clyde had to be dredged out and deepened for her launch, and even then, there is a real fear that she could build up so much momentum during the launch that she might smash into the opposite bank.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): In order to slow her down, over 2,000 tons of drag chains are attached to the hull to act as brakes.

The Queen christens the ship in the traditional manner, but not with French champagne.

This is Australian wine from the Commonwealth.

QUEEN MARY: I am happy to name this ship the Queen Mary.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): The massive hull begins to slide towards the water, and the biggest vessel ever built pushes a bow wave across the River Clyde as the drag chains bite in.

Engineers have worked out that the chains should stop the ship after 1,194 feet.

Much further could mean disaster.

She finally comes to rest in the river just two feet beyond their calculations.

ROB BELL: The launch was a success, but the Queen Mary is nowhere near ready to sail yet.

She still requires a good 18 months of work to fit her out and install the engines.

And before she's completed, her French rival will set a standard that she might find impossible to beat.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): In June 1935, SS Normandie's maiden voyage smashes the record for the fastest Atlantic crossing by 10 hours.

NEWS READER (VOICEOVER): Entering New York Harbor, the city turned out to greet the new queen, the SS Normandie.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): A year later, the Queen Mary is finally ready to reclaim British supremacy of the Atlantic.

And to do that, she had to win the prize for the fastest ever crossing, known as the Blue Riband.

The biggest single draw to gaining the most ticket sales was the Blue Riband.

People wanted to travel on the fastest ship.

Whether it was the best, whether it was the smoothest was irrelevant.

They wanted to be able to boast to their families and to their friends, we traveled on "SS Whatever."

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): All hopes are riding on Cunard White Star's flagship.

But the voyage is nothing short of a disaster.

LES STREATER: The problems that Queen Mary experienced on her maiden voyage included cavitation, which is where the propellers aren't quite designed to suit the wave conditions that she experienced, which caused a lot of hammering effect on the hull.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): In addition to inefficient propellers, the Queen Mary's powerful turbine engines develop teething trouble, and the Blue Riband slips from her grasp.

The Queen Mary arrives to a rapturous welcome in New York Harbor, but for her captain, Commodore Britten, it must have been a huge disappointment.

Her first voyage takes five days to Normandie's four.

Britten vows to beat the Normandie on a future crossing.

He knows the Queen Mary has the potential to be the greatest passenger ship that has ever taken to the seas, but it will take time and money to get her there.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): The Normandie's speed is due in part to her radical new hull design.

Like the biggest ships today, she has an innovative bulbous bow projecting forwards below the waterline.

BRUCE VANCIL: The bulbous bow goes back to ancient history, where the ship's prow went under the water out ahead.

It makes the ship a little more efficient, it makes it a little bit quicker, and you get less disturbance of the ocean as she sails along.

So she was the first major liner to take advantage of that.

And of course, they all have it now.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): After several weeks of improvements, the Queen Mary is ready for a showdown with the Normandie.

But would efficiency or muscle ultimately win in the quest for speed?

This time.

There's no hiccups.

The Queen Mary roars across the Atlantic, averaging a speed of 30.14 knots.

She smashes the Normandie's record by more than three and a half hours, completing her crossing in four days and 27 minutes.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): And on the return journey, she leaves the world in no doubt that the Atlantic has a new British queen, by becoming the first ever passenger ship to make the crossing in less than four days.

The greatest rivalry in passenger ship racing has begun.

For two years, the Queen Mary and the Normandie slug it out, breaking each other's records with every refit and fine tune at speeds that are rarely matched by ocean liners today.

The Queen Mary was to have the last say, with an average speed of over 31 knots.

ROB BELL: Upon hearing of the Queen Mary's achievement, the Normandie's captain is reported to have said, "Bravo to the Queen Mary.

Until next time."

But there will be no next time.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): By 1939, Hitler is spreading fear across Europe.

On September the 2nd, the Queen Mary is on her way to New York with a full complement of passengers when an urgent dispatch is received from the admiralty.

The Nazis have invaded Poland.

[artillery fire] With U-boats already prowling the Atlantic, the pride of the British merchant fleet could become fair game.

The next morning, Britain declares war on Germany, and within hours, the British liner SS Athena is torpedoed by a U-boat.

Over 100 civilians are killed.

News spreads like wildfire amongst the Queen Mary's panicked passengers.

But she still has two days' sailing ahead of her, never knowing if a U-boat could strike.

ROB BELL: When the Queen Mary arrives into New York City on the 5th of September, 1939, her great rival, the Normandie, is already berthed there.

As the passengers disembark, the world has forever changed.

Britain and her allies have declared war on Nazi Germany, sparking what will become World War II.

And this conflict will bring about the ultimate destruction of one of these two magnificent ocean liners.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): Today, the Queen Mary is retired from service at Long Beach, California.

But in March 1940, less than four years into her career, she was facing the prospect of never sailing again for very different reasons.

[music playing] The outbreak of World War II had turned the North Atlantic into a no-go zone for commercial liners.

The pride of Britain's merchant fleet, the RMS Queen Mary, lies moored up at Cunard's Pier 91 in New York Harbor.

Alongside her is her recently completed sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth, and her French rival, the Normandie.

[music playing] The three liners are effectively trapped in port because Hitler's primary naval tactic is to sink merchant ships, not warships.

ANDREW LAMBERT: The Battle of the Atlantic is the central struggle of the whole of World War II.

Without command of the Atlantic, the Allies would have been separated.

Britain would have had no access to the resources it needed to carry on fighting the war, particularly things like oil, fuel, American munitions, weapons, and food.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): With the slow-moving supply convoys vulnerable to devastating losses, Britain is in danger of running out of fuel.

The oil-hungry superliners are looking like an immense burden.

For the second time in her life, the Queen Mary is facing the scrap heap.

But critics of the Queen Mary and her sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth, have overlooked their two key attributes.

They're big, and they're fast-- faster than the convoys.

It's decided that the Queens can be put to good use as troop transporters, but that will require the Queen Mary to undergo a radical transformation to get her ready to take on the Nazis.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): But what use are her airy cabins and finely-decorated lounges?

To military on the move, they offer a vital resource, space.

Her peacetime passenger capacity of 2,100 was more than doubled overnight.

They initially brought on board wooden, three-tiered bunks and increased her transporting capacity to 5,500.

A little later, it went up to 8,500, and they would actually have to rotate sleeping patterns.

So some of the crew would be on the upper decks, allowing their fellow soldiers to sleep below decks.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): But crammed with thousands of troops, the Queen Mary is now a prime target.

Without a warship's armor plating, this genteel passenger liner needs to defend herself.

So out goes the games deck, and in come the weapons.

DAVE WAY: When they upgraded the armament carried onboard the ship, she probably would be the equivalent of a light anti-aircraft cruiser.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): To the thousands of servicemen thronging the decks here, guns like this must have been a reassuring sight.

And the Queen Mary had another glaring problem to solve to protect her precious cargo.

Cunard's contrasting colors of black, white and red would make her the biggest target on the ocean.

It was time for a makeover, in light sea gray.

The time comes for the Queen Mary to prove herself with her unbeatable speed, but leaving the convoys behind would test the nerves of the thousands of servicemen aboard.

DAVE WAY: They would initially for a few miles, have an escort of air cover, perhaps, and destroyers, and maybe a cruiser or two.

But once they went further out, then they would be totally on their own.

Well, I would imagine as a sailor, as well as the troops that were on board the ship, that must have been a pretty frightening feeling.

Now you're out in the ocean all by yourself.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): But despite the risks, the biggest ship on the sea outruns and outmaneuvers the Germans.

Within months, she's pulling off daring solo runs around the world, delivering vital troops and supplies wherever they're needed.

Her exploits win her legendary status.

She's so elusive that she earns the wartime moniker "The Gray Ghost."

DAVE WAY: The reason Queen Mary was able to conduct her voyages almost without any interference whatsoever was this great speed of hers.

It was double the convoys.

For the enemy, she would appear somewhere, disappear, and then they would see her appear somewhere else.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): The Queen Mary becomes indispensable to the war effort.

It's been estimated that she represented almost 20% of Britain's entire troop carrying capacity.

It's the safest way of moving people.

And the attrition rate on the Queen Mary carrying troops is zero.

Not a single soldier lost his life through enemy action on the Queen Mary.

That's what you're getting when you're using a ship like that.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): But her game-changing success soon attracts the unwelcome attention of the Führer himself.

DAVE WAY: Adolf Hitler, he offered one million Reichsmarks to take her out, and also one of the most prized awards, the Iron Cross with oak leaves.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): But in 1942, in the safety of port, an accident brings home just how vulnerable the superliners are.

This photo shows the two Queens moored alongside Queen Mary's old rival, the SS Normandie, still painted in her civilian colors.

But the French flagship was doomed before she ever had a chance to join the war effort.

During hurried work to convert her into a troop carrier, she catches fire and keels over in the dock.

[somber music] ♪ ♪ But the Allies need the superliners more than ever.

DAVE WAY: Winston Churchill's greatest fear was the U-boats and the Nazi Germany surface raiders preventing the supplies from reaching the United Kingdom.

The climatic moment was in 1942, when over 1,300 merchant ships were sunk.

And the Allies were in a panic mode.

They thought the convoy system wasn't working.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): With the increasing pressure to deliver, the Queen Mary is to have her fair share of brushes with disaster.

She makes a narrow escape from Rio after a tip off that a U-boat is closing in.

And braving the North Atlantic towards Scotland, tragedy strikes, but not in the way Hitler intended.

At full speed and zigzagging to avoid torpedoes, she steams straight into a British cruiser.

ANDREW LAMBERT: Damage to Queen Mary was minimal, but the small cruiser sank very quickly with significant loss of life.

Queen Mary didn't stop and didn't slow down because there were 10,000 Allied troops on board, and it was thought too great a risk.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): Over 300 of the warship's men were lost before help could arrive.

And a few weeks later, the Queen Mary faces another disaster.

This time, the enemy is the Atlantic itself.

With around 11,000 souls aboard, she finds herself being hammered by a winter storm.

Then, almost 700 miles from Scotland, a towering black wall of water emerges from the stormy seas, bearing down on the Queen Mary at ferocious speed.

There's nothing the crew can do except brace for impact and pray that the ship survives.

They realize they're at the mercy of an old mariner's legend, a rogue wave.

Toughened glass shatters, and the dark, icy depth of the Atlantic rises up as the ship lists to one side, causing widespread panic on board.

Clinging to the railings on the bridge, the crew knows that if she capsizes on this freezing stormy night, it's almost certain that all lives on board will be lost.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): Just when it seems the Queen Mary is leaning to the point of no return, the ship rights itself.

But could a single wave really capsize a liner the size of the Queen Mary?

To find out, I've come to the wave tank at the University of Southampton.

A rogue wave is so-called because it's at least twice the height of the waves around it, so it seems to come out of nowhere.

They're a one-off that could catch any captain unawares.

Much like this kayak, the streamlined hulls of ocean liners are designed to cut through small waves like this and keep their stability really well.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): This, combined with their buoyancy, means that ships can ride over waves that are even higher than their deck when they meet head on.

So how did a rogue wave almost capsize the Queen Mary?

If a big wave hits the kayak from the side-- [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ I'm much less stable and the kayak's easily flipped over.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): Scientists couldn't even agree whether these rare waves were a real phenomenon until as recently as 1995, when one was measured hitting an oil platform.

So what do eyewitness accounts tell us about how much trouble the Queen Mary was in?

What do we know about the rogue wave that struck the Queen Mary then?

They think that it was about 30 meters high.

And I think she rolled the ship to an angle of about 50 degrees.

That was within five or six degrees of causing her to capsize, actually.

So she was actually really close, then, to capsize.

Yeah, absolutely.

So she was kind of beyond the midway point.

On a big ship, as well, 50 degrees is a really big heel angle.

So I think that would have been very frightening for those on board.

And obviously at the time, people wouldn't have realized how close that was to causing her to capsize.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): If a giant wave hits head on, a ship can slice through it.

But if a wall of water hits from the side, it has an entire length of the ship's hull to push against.

The Queen Mary was estimated to have been inches away from her tipping point.

Does that tell us something about how well she was designed, how well she performed as a ship?

Yeah, I think absolutely.

OK, she came close to capsizing, but she didn't.

So that tells you that she was well-designed, had very good reserves of stability, and was a very well-engineered ship.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): By 1943, the tide of the war in Europe is turning.

The Allies are planning to invade Nazi-occupied France-- D-Day.

If it's to be a success, they'll need huge numbers of troops transported from the US to the UK in time for a summer invasion.

The Queen Mary rises to the challenge.

On one voyage, she carries an unprecedented 16,683 soldiers and crew, the largest number of people ever carried on a single ship in human history.

A record that still hasn't been broken today.

And it's this record-breaking ability that will help change the course of the war.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): In 1945, the Allies declare victory in Europe.

The Queen Mary alone has transported at least 800,000 military personnel into battle.

Many believe that the contribution of the Queen Mary and her sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth, actually shortened the length of the war.

Winston Churchill is quoted as saying that "without their aid, the day of final victory must unquestionably have been postponed."

ROB BELL: The Gray Ghost has written her place in history.

With her wartime glory behind her, the Queen Mary goes back to the role she was designed for, as one of the biggest, the fastest, and most luxurious ocean liners ever built.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): The Second World War is over.

It's been more than 10 years since the Queen Mary was launched, but by 1947, she's ready to return to the job she was designed for.

Along with her sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth, they're finally able to realize their owner's dream of turning transatlantic travel into the trip of a lifetime.

ROB BELL: Such is the popularity of the Queens that the newly rebranded Cunard has become the best-known shipping line in the world, but not just best known.

Between them, the two sister ships are carrying a third of all North Atlantic passengers.

EVERETTE HOARD: So for 10 glorious years, the Queens were earning what they cost to build every year, $50 million for the pair, an unheard of amount in those days.

Cunard thought they had found the pot of gold.

[music playing] ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): And anyone who's anyone wants to stay in Queen Mary's prestigious first-class cabins.

For royalty, politicians, business magnates, and Hollywood stars, it's the only way to travel.

But as the 50's draw to a close, the Queen Mary's reign is coming to an end.

She's no longer the fastest way to cross the Atlantic.

The superliner is about to be overtaken by a new technology, with the advent of the jet age.

LES STREATER: By 1958, airline travel suddenly blossomed and the market share for ships dropped almost overnight.

Suddenly, people were able to cross in hours instead of days.

PETER KNEGO: They wanted to go over and do their business and get back home, and they didn't care if they were uncomfortable on a plane for a few hours.

They didn't have that time.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): By the 1960s, the majestic size and weight of the Queen Mary were making her extremely expensive to run.

By this time, the Queen's using 1,000 tons of oil every 24 hours at sea.

That's about 13 feet to the gallon, or a barrel of oil every 12 seconds.

SHAWN DAKE: They were losing thousands and thousands of dollars or pounds every single day.

Adding that up into a year, it went into the millions of dollars.

So they weren't going to keep these ships around.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): By 1965, over four million people are crossing the Atlantic by air.

The ship that once thronged with thousands was sometimes reduced to carrying fewer than 500.

PETER KNEGO: For the last few years, the Queens struggled terribly.

They were sailing virtually empty, just a few people in the salons being waited on by these lifetime service people who had been on the ship since they were in their early teens and 20s, working as busboys.

And then finally, their career was over, too.

It was a very, very sad time.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): Too big to adapt for cruise destinations, by 1967, the legendary ship is facing the scrapheap for the third time in her life.

So the ships would be sold off.

And then typically, when that happens, a ship is sold for the scrapyard.

It was virtually unheard of that you'd save a piece of machinery that you weren't going to use anymore.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): The Queen Mary is put up for auction, with most interest from Far Eastern scrap merchants, So it's quite a surprise when the winning bid of $3,450,000 comes from the city of Long Beach, California.

But it's a demonstration of how much the Queen Mary means to hearts on both sides of the Atlantic.

SHAWN DAKE: The whole idea it was going to come here and they could convert it, and it could become a major maritime museum and attraction on the West Coast.

We were full of tourist attractions, and we were buying virtually anything British at the time, from the Queen Mary to the London Bridge.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): A plan was made to quietly deliver the Queen Mary to her new owners with the minimum of fuss, but that wasn't to be.

They would not have their ship arriving without passengers.

Cunard offered to deliver the ship hands on, no frills, a skeleton crew, get the ship here safely, economically.

But the city fathers thought that the ship arriving without passengers would be a terrible end to such a glorious career.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): Queen Mary's final voyage became the hottest ticket in town, with people paying up to $9,000 for what amounted to a five-week long party.

[music playing] When she finally approached the port where her sailing days were to end, her last captain, John Treasure Jones, was overcome with emotion by what he saw.

When she arrived in Long Beach, it was on December 9, 1967.

There were just thousands and thousands of boats.

[majestic music] ♪ ♪ It was just an enormous reception.

Everyone was talking about it, and the place to be was down here on the waterfront to see the Queen Mary come in.

It's the most famous ship in the world, and in my opinion, still is.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): On her arrival at Long Beach, it was time for one last refit, transforming her from a ship into a building.

The Queen Mary reopened to an enthusiastic public as a hotel in May 1971.

On board, her grand fixtures and furnishings have been restored to their original glory, with 347 first-class staterooms and suites for guests to stay in.

The Queen Mary has been given a whole new lease of life that most ocean liners don't get at the end of their careers.

ROB BELL (VOICEOVER): And since arriving at her new home, the Queen Mary has brought millions of visitors to Long Beach.

She's now seen as such an important landmark that in 1993, she was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

EVERETTE HOARD: She is the crown jewel of Long Beach Harbor.

She is iconic with Southern California.

She has become to Southern Californians what Big Ben is to Londoners, what the Eiffel Tower is to Parisians, what the Statue of Liberty is to New Yorkers.

SHAWN DAKE: The ship has probably more soul than any other ship that you'll run across.

She touched people back when she was running, and she still touches people now.

PETER KNEGO: As long as she lasts, there will be a connection to the great ocean liners of the past.

♪ ♪ The Queen Mary is one of the greatest passenger ships ever built, and still is a true marvel of British maritime engineering.

And you know, I think it's a rather fitting retirement for such a mighty ship that gave so much to both nations she called home.

♪ ♪ [horn blast] [theme music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪