Invasion, 1952
(See Cover)
Not since D-day had Europe seen such an American invasion. From Land's End to the toe of Italy, tourists established beachheads at bars and hotels, and wave after wave of reinforcements came ashore.
In Britain, they hunted down the graves of ancestors, drove about the Lake District, walked the streets of London with tireless energy. Outside Buckingham Palace, they stood with cameras at the ready, as if waiting for the Queen to wave to them from the windows. They toured the Tower, St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey ("Is this really the coronation throne? Kinda beat up, isn't it?"), carefully watched out for cars on the "wrong side" of the street, crowded into Dirty Dick's Fleet Street pub and the Prospect of Whitby on the Thames. Wherever Americans went sightseeing, they saw that reassuring sight--other Americans.
Texas Week. Paris, their favorite city, seemed like home. Whether strolling the Champs-Elysees, primping at Elizabeth Arden's, or downing Martinis ("Tres sec, avec le Gordon's gin") at Harry's New York Bar, they would always find some familiar face. They took their cigars and baby Brownies into Sacre-Coeur, climbed to the top of Notre Dame, brushed shoulders with Bohemia in cellar nightclubs on the Left Bank, gave free advice to street artists painting in Montmartre. They drove down the Loire valley searching out new restaurants and old chateaux (now floodlit at night for American eyes), and tried not to notice the scrawled Communist signs, "Americans, go home."
Prices were shockingly high, although France had a group of "Vacation Villages" around the country in which a 10-ft.-square cabin and three meals a day cost only $1.50 to $1.80. For Lone-Star Staters, Southern France made frantic preparations for La Semaine du Texas, an eight-day week, when imported Neiman-Marcus models in ten-gallon hats will roam the ranges of the Riviera.
"Everything Was Divine." In Switzerland, Americans climbed the Jungfrau (by railroad), sailed on Lake Geneva, took pictures of each other quaffing beer from giant steins. In Italy, as one enthusiastic female put it, "everything was divine." Prices were low, the food & drink excellent, and waiters now know what "on the rocks" means. Tourists explored catacombs, craned their necks at the Michelangelo ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, where a sign cautions: "Visitors are forbidden to lie on the floor." In Venice, they fed the pigeons in St. Mark's Square, drifted down the Grand Canal in gondolas, and pointed out to each other the palaces once lived in by Byron and Browning. They rolled through the hill towns of Siena, Perugia and Orvieto in air-conditioned motor coaches of the government's CIAT Travel Agency (Florence to Rome: $6.50), equipped with radios, lavatories, bars and pretty hostesses.
In Spain, which many Americans first discovered this year, they drank manzanilla in fake gypsy caves, trooped past the magnificent pictures in the Prado, and visited the "house of El Greco" in Toledo --in which he never lived (it was built near the site of his home some years after his death). Tourists overtipped cab drivers, loaded up with mantillas, castanets and other trinkets, and thus sent prices up. The bullfights roused strong emotions in them: they either cheered the bull, marveled at the matador, or fainted at the sight of blood.
Everywhere, hotels were booked solid for the summer; trains, planes and buses were jammed. Everywhere, except in Italy and Spain, tourists found the prices much higher than they had counted on (headlined Variety: EUROPE. IN TWO WORDS: BRING CASH). The 750,000 Americans visiting Europe this year (up from 700,000 in 1951) will spend more than $750 million, or an average of about $800 apiece.
The Challenger. The majority of these travelers are still going by ship, although the airlines, helped by their new tourist rates, will carry almost as many. Like the planes, tourist space on the stately Queens, the elegant Ile de France, the Independence, Constitution, and all the other liners, is sold out till September. By midsummer, France will add her 23-knot, 20,300-ton Flandre to the transatlantic fleet, and Holland will put her 15,000-ton, 875-passenger Maasdam into service. But the prize of the new ships is the United States Lines' new superliner United States, the biggest passenger ship ever built in the U.S., and the third largest in the world. On her first speed trials last week, the United States also showed that she is probably the fastest liner in the world. Off Virginia, she "considerably exceeded 34 knots" for eight hours, faster than any other passenger ship is known to have done. Going astern, the United States made 20 knots, faster than most ships' forward speed.
As she steamed back to port, the crew hung an oversize broom on a mast. It was a symbol for "sweeping the sea," and a rehearsal for the day when the United States hopes to win the Blue Ribbon Atlantic speed record from the Queen Mary (three days and 20 hours, 42 minutes, or an average speed of 31.69 knots), and bring the prize to the U.S. for the first time in 100 years.* The United States will sail July 3 on her maiden voyage under Commodore Harry Manning. Weather permitting, Commodore Manning hopes to capture the speed record on the first trip.
Dream Come True. The superliner is the dreamboat of William Francis Gibbs, 65, crack naval architect and famed designer of World War II's Liberty ships, and every type of naval ship from destroyer to battleship. He sold the dream to the Government and U.S. Lines Co.; the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry dock Co. made it come true.
Because of its long, slim prow, the United States is racier-looking than most ocean liners. Its hull is black, its superstructure dazzling white. Around the spacious sundeck, 24 aluminum life boats (capacity: 3,280) glisten in the sun; above it all stand two gigantic red, white & blue stacks. They are the biggest stacks in the world--not because the engines need them (actually the stacks are crammed with air-conditioning equipment, blowers, etc.), but because only stacks of their proportions would look right on such a giant.
For all her size, the hull is as sleek as a shark to help her outrun submarines. Fore & aft, her plates, instead of being riveted together in overlaps, like the Queens', are welded end to end, making the hull lighter, smoother and faster. Much of her superstructure is made of aluminum to cut down weight and lessen the ship's roll. In her compact white engine rooms (two separate rooms to lessen the danger from torpedoes in time of war), oil-fired boilers supply high-pressure steam to power the turbines that drive four giant propellers. These generate enough power for a city the size of San Antonio. From dog kennels (holding 20 dogs) to galleys (equipped with Radar-ranges that can cook a steak in seconds), the United States is air-conditioned.
The cabins are comfortable but not opulent. There are 344 first-class cabins (top price: $930 for double bedroom, bathroom and sitting room), 178 second or cabin class ($220 to $290), and 173 third or tourist class ($200 for an outside main-deck cabin with upper & lower berths and running water, to $165 for the cheapest cabin).
In the cabins, dresser drawers lock in place and do not rattle; bathroom light fixtures are angled above the mirror to reflect directly in the shaver's face; shower valves are thermostatically controlled to prevent the water from getting too hot. From every cabin, travelers can phone to anywhere in the world.
Luxury v. Defense. Because the United States was built as a troop carrier in war as much as a tourist carrier in peace, the Navy had final say on what went into the ship. Whenever the choice lay between luxury and defense, defense won. In the cabin-class lounge, for example, Designer Gibbs wanted windows. The Navy said no; they might weaken the ship.
The first-class dining room seems chopped up, because the Navy demanded extra reinforcing stanchions. Because the Navy banned all inflammable materials, the ship has no wooden ornaments or canvas paintings; public rooms are decorated with cold aluminum and glass sculptures and panels, or flame-resistant Dynel fabrics. Furniture and life preservers are stuffed with flameproof glass fiber instead of kapok. The only wooden objects on board are the butcher's blocks and the pianos. Even the orchestra leaders' batons are aluminum.
The Navy got what it wanted: a fast ship that can be quickly converted into a troop transport capable of carrying 14,000 men halfway around the world, nonstop. The United States' reinforced decks are strong enough to hold gun platforms; her hull is divided into watertight compartments whose doors can be closed automatically to seal off damage.
Ties & Turkeys. For her 1,000-man crew, U.S. Lines combed lists of officers and engineers. Stewards, chefs and bartenders were put through a six-week refresher course in tying passengers' black ties, mixing drinks and making beds. The ship's 178 chefs and assistants prepared and cooked complete trial menus. Over everything, Commodore Manning, master of the United States, kept a watchful eye --from the anchor chain to the windshield wipers on the pilothouse windows.
To command its No. 1 ship, the U.S. Lines picked its No. 1 skipper. Commodore Manning is, by his own admission, a stubborn, bullheaded, tactless introvert. At 55, he is also a brilliant man who is called by his friends & enemies the best seaman in the world. He wears his commodore's hat low over his cold grey eyes, has a field of ribbons on his chest, and a foot-high stack of scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings to show how he got them all. In his 37 years at sea, Manning has been the hero of sundry mid-ocean rescues, survived a ticker-tape parade up Broadway, once was navigator for Flyer Amelia Earhart. Newspapers referred to him as a "habitual hero." Yet he has kept in his hat a carefully lettered reminder of the responsibilities of his new command: "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."
Manning needs no reminder that "the ship always comes first." A few years ago, when he was about to take the United States Lines' America on her maiden postwar voyage, the A.F.L. Masters, Mates and Pilots union threatened to tie up the ship unless he joined the union himself. Cried Manning: "I'll starve before I join . . . No captain can be subject to the dictates of a union delegate."
He was soon in an argument with the C.I.O. His crew, members of C.I.O.'s National Maritime Union, vowed they would not take out the ship unless the line discharged the chief crew steward who had fired two other union members. Said Manning: "These [union] people have not a single ounce of responsibility for the safety of this vessel." The America sailed on time. Later, a maritime union took a kinder view of Manning, awarded him a scroll for helping them clean Communists out of the organization.
One day in 1947, when the America headed into Southampton, she was held up for six hours by the Queen Elizabeth, which had run aground in a hairpin turn of the channel. Manning saw the British press, stomped up & down his cabin berating the Admiralty for Southampton's "primitive and disgraceful" harbor. Parliament later voted -L-600,000 to straighten the channel, and Southampton now gives Manning much of the credit for the improvement. In everything pertaining to his ship, Manning is an unsmiling perfectionist who expects officers to jump when he gives an order. Says one old shipmate: "When you're aboard a ship and Manning's on top, you don't have to worry about your skin. Manning will take care of that."
Irish Pennants & Beards. Manning drives himself as hard as his men. He keeps his sturdy (5 ft. 7 1/2 in., 160 Ibs.) frame in tiptop shape by boxing every day (he used to spar with ex-Lightweight Champion Benny Leonard), and does not smoke or drink. On board his ship, he wakes up every morning at about 6:30 for coffee in bed, takes a quick look topside before a breakfast of orange juice, eggs, toast and more coffee. The first day out he spends the morning making a stem-to-stern inspection, in which the smallest Irish pennant (loose rope end) or stubble of beard will catch his choleric eye.
Having been briefed by the chief steward on any VIPs aboard, Manning then sets out to meet them. He doesn't like this part of a skipper's job, but the commodore is a determined man, and has taught himself some of the social graces. He invites small groups, in shifts, to cocktails before lunch and dinner; if they stay too long, he politely gets rid of them by saying he is needed on the bridge.
Which Is the Flower? Manning constantly worries about his ship. He hates to linger at the captain's table (likely guests on the maiden voyage: Margaret Truman, the Vincent Astors, United Aircraft's Fred Rentschler and wife, the U.S. Lines' President John Franklin). Says he: "I get uneasy wondering what's going on up top." Though he abominates small talk, Manning has taught himself a few conversational gambits. One of them is to lean around a vase of flowers and say to the lady passenger opposite: "I can hardly tell which is the flower." Says Manning: "That always goes over big."
Manning is a self-taught expert on many subjects, and occasionally astounds his guests. On one trip across with New York's ex-Representative Joe Baldwin, he and Baldwin traded lines from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. Manning puts his best social foot forward dancing. He has standing orders with the chief steward to steer the best dancers in his direction. Says Manning with a grin: "The only reason I'm on these ships is that I can tango."
For as long as 36 hours before the ship docks, even in calm weather, Manning takes his only sleep in catnaps; he hardly stays in his cabin long enough to shave. Nor does the commodore completely relax in port. He has never been to Paris because he can't leave his ship that long. This fanatic devotion to duty has taken its toll in Manning's personal life. Twelve years ago he married Florence Isabella Trowbridge Heaton, whom he met on a crossing. They were divorced two years later, shortly after their daughter was born. Explains Manning: "I couldn't serve two masters."
"I Was a Fanatic." Manning was born in Germany in 1897. His father was a junior officer in the British Foreign Service, his mother a German. When he was ten, his father moved to New York and went into the importing business. Young Manning was a runt with a lisp (since conquered), and his parents were never surprised when he came home with a bloodied nose.
He graduated from grade school with honors, enrolled in the New York Nautical School, with his sextant took a sight on success. Says Manning: "I was a fanatic on navigation." He was the smallest in his class, but he was also smart and tough. Two years and many fistfights later, he shipped out on the St. Paul as a $15-a-month seaman. With the new Marcq St.-Hilaire navigating system learned in school, a refinement of which is now in common use in the Navy, Manning soon distinguished himself as a navigator, and was made quartermaster the second trip out. Then, while making Nantucket in choppy seas one day, he got seasick at the wheel, flubbed the captain's orders and was fired at the end of the voyage. Manning next shipped out to the Pacific for eleven months on the four-masted sailing ship Dirigo.
"None Like Me." As a junior officer on tankers, freighters and passenger ships, Manning came to be known as a man who wanted things done his way--even though the captain might have different plans. He likes to quote the Duke of Montrose:
He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all.
Once, as second officer of the George Washington, he was making port when he found himself behind schedule. While the captain wasn't looking, Manning set the bridge clock back. What would Commodore Manning do if his own junior officers tried such tricks today? Manning's reply: "There are no officers like me today."
Not everyone appreciated young Manning's independence and way of doing things. He was fired off the famed Leviathan (nee Vaterland) after a year at cross-purposes with the captain; on one ship, the stewards tried to poison him by dumping roach powder in his coffee. Says Manning: "I was an awful son of a bitch in those days." His hands still bear the scars of knives wielded by a stowaway and what Manning calls "various obstreperous members of the crew."
In the winter of 1929, when Manning was first officer of the old America, his ship came upon the Italian freighter Florida, wallowing helplessly on her beam ends in the stormy mid-Atlantic with a parted rudder chain. Manning volunteered to take a lifeboat with seven men across a quarter-mile of raging, ice-strewn seas to rescue the Italian crew. The 32 men were saved. On his return to New York, he was given a hero's welcome, a ticker-tape parade and a banquet.
"I've Come Home." That rescue was only the first of Manning's many newsmaking exploits. He saved Flyer Lou Reichers after his plane had fallen into the Atlantic; twice, in port, he dived over the side for men overboard. He learned to fly, made Sunday inspections of his ship from the air, and blasted the crew next day if he found anything not shipshape.
In 1937 he went on leave to be navigator as far as Australia for Amelia Earhart on her proposed flight around the world. In Honolulu, the plane skidded on a take-off and cracked up. No one was hurt, but Manning had to return to his ship before the plane could be repaired and the flight resumed. This was the flight on which Amelia Earhart lost her life.
Soon after, Manning had a crackup in his own Fairchild monoplane. He was hauled from the wreckage with a concussion, compound fractures of both legs, a compound jaw fracture, a broken arm, a broken nose, and countless cuts and bruises. Doctors thought he would never walk again. But nine months after the crackup he was back on the bridge.
"Torpedo Ship." At the outbreak of World War II, Manning was skipper of the Washington, carrying refugees from Europe. So many children were aboard that the ship was nicknamed "S.S. Diaper." At dawn, one morning in 1940, off the coast of Portugal, a German U-boat surfaced and blinked out a terrifying message: "STOP SHIP. EASE TO SHIP. TORPEDO SHIP." Manning ordered his 1590 passengers to the lifeboats, Then, for ten tense minutes, as the sub repeatedly flashed "ABANDON SHIP," Manning stubbornly replied: "AMERICAN SHIP." Finally, in the agonizing quiet, the submarine signaled: "THOUGHT YOU WERE ANOTHER SHIP. PLEASE go ON."
Manning finished World War II as a Navy commander in command of the merchant marine's radio school in New York, and at war's end was given command of the renovated America. After two winters of storms and fast turnarounds, Manning's stomach went back on him, and he had to be relieved of command; later, he recovered and returned to full duty. If & when he retires he will be relieved by Captain John Anderson, 53, an old schoolmate.
End of an Era. As the United States finished her tune-up runs, she was embroiled in as loud a controversy as ever squalled up over Commodore Manning. The question: How much should the U.S. Lines pay for the ship? The line had signed a contract in 1948 to foot $28 million of the building cost, while the Government would pay the remaining $42 million. The Government's share was for subsidies to make up for the higher building costs of U.S. ships, and to pay for the expensive defense features.
Last week Comptroller General Lindsay Warren demanded that the U.S. Lines should pay another $10 million. The line refused. The argument would not delay the maiden voyage, but there was a chance that the ship would sail under lease instead of under the U.S. Lines' ownership.
Most big lines make money only with the help of sizable government subsidies. Last year, with a $4,501,608 subsidy and a fleet of 46 moneymaking freighters, U.S. Lines earned $7,489,812. It is counting on a big subsidy boost to help pay for operating the United States.
Because of the travel boom, shippers believe that England's Queens have been exceptions to the general rule, and have been raking in dollars. But the Queens have a big advantage over the United States. Their labor costs are 75% lower, and they can shuttle back & forth on a weekly schedule, with scarcely an idle day. The United States, on 4 1/2-day runs (leaving Manhattan about every two weeks), will have no sister ship to team up with; the America can't keep as fast a schedule. On top of this, all liners are waging a losing battle against the airlines. Five years ago, only 30% of transatlantic travel was by air. This year it will reach about 40%, and airlines talk confidently of getting the bulk of the business next year. But as long as the travel boom lasts, shippers are not too worried; they think they will get their profitable share--and they think they have some things that no plane can match. As one European-bound tripper put it: "Is there anything better than sitting in a cozy nook on the stern of a ship, smelling the salt air and watching the white wake, and knowing that you have nothing to do but enjoy yourself?"
* The record was held briefly in 1852 by the Baltic, 2,664-ton sidewheeler which averaged 13 knots. Cunarders profess they are unconcerned by the new threat. Sniffed Cunard Chairman Fred Bates: "Speed for the sake of speed has not entered into our reckoning."
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