RMS Caronia was a 34,183 gross register tons (GRT) passenger ship of the Cunard Line. Launched on 30 October 1947, she served with Cunard until 1967. She was nicknamed the "Green Goddess" after her light green hull livery. She was one of the first "dual-purpose" ships, built both for 2-class transatlantic crossings and all 1st-class cruising. After leaving Cunard she was briefly Caribia in 1969, after which she was laid up in New York until 1974, when she was sold for scrap. While being towed to Taiwan for scrapping, she was caught in a storm on 12 August. After her tow lines were cut, she repeatedly crashed on the rocky breakwater outside Apra Harbor, Guam and broke into three sections.
RMS Aquitania was an ocean liner of the Cunard Line in service from 1914 to 1950. She was designed by Leonard Peskett and built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland. She was launched on 21 April 1913 and sailed on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York on 30 May 1914. She was given the title of Royal Mail Ship (RMS) like many other Cunard ocean liners since she carried the royal mail on many of her voyages. Aquitania was the third in Cunard Line's grand trio of express liners, preceded by RMS Mauretania and RMS Lusitania, and was the last surviving four-funnelled ocean liner. Shortly after Aquitania entered service, the First World War broke out, during which she was first converted into an auxiliary cruiser before being used as a troop transport and a hospital ship, notably as part of the Dardanelles Campaign.
RMS Mauretania was a British ocean liner designed by Leonard Peskett and built by Wigham Richardson and Swan Hunter on the River Tyne, England for the Cunard Line, launched on the afternoon of 20 September 1906. She was the world's largest ship until the launch of RMS Olympic in 1910. Mauretania captured the eastbound Blue Riband on the maiden return voyage in December 1907, then claimed the westbound Blue Riband for the fastest transatlantic crossing during her 1909 season. She held both speed records for 20 years.
RMS Laconia was a Cunard ocean liner, built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson as a successor of the 1911–1917 Laconia. The new ship was launched on 9 April 1921, and made her maiden voyage on 25 May 1922 from Southampton to New York City. At the outbreak of the Second World War she was converted into an armed merchant cruiser, and later a troopship. She was sunk in the South Atlantic Ocean on 12 September 1942 by torpedoes. Like her predecessor, sunk during the First World War, this Laconia was also destroyed by a German submarine. Some estimates of the death toll have suggested that over 1,658 people were killed when the Laconia sank. The U-boat commander Werner Hartenstein then staged a dramatic effort to rescue the passengers and the crew of Laconia, which involved additional German U-boats and became known as the Laconia incident.
Sir Arthur Henry Rostron, KBE, RD, RNR was a British merchant seaman and a seagoing officer for the Cunard Line. He is best known as the captain of the ocean liner RMS Carpathia, when it rescued the survivors from the RMS Titanic after the ship sank in 1912 in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.
RMS Cedric was an ocean liner owned by the White Star Line. She was the second of a quartet of ships over 20,000 tons, dubbed the Big Four, and was the largest vessel in the world at the time of her entering service. Her career, peppered with collisions and minor incidents, took place mainly on the route from Liverpool to New York.
RMS Adriatic was a British ocean liner of the White Star Line. She was the fourth of a quartet of ships of more than 20,000 GRT, dubbed The Big Four. The ship was the only one of the four which was never the world's largest ship. However, she was the largest, the fastest, and the most luxurious of the Big Four, being the first ocean liner to have an indoor swimming pool and Victorian-style Turkish baths.
SS Cap Trafalgar was a German ocean liner launched in 1913 for the Hamburg Süd line. In 1914, she was converted for use as an auxiliary cruiser during World War I. She was the first armed merchant cruiser sunk by a ship of the same class; she was destroyed by HMS Carmania, also a converted ocean liner, in a furious action in the South Atlantic on 14 September 1914. It was the world's first battle between former ocean liners.
RMS Carmania was a Cunard Line transatlantic steam turbine ocean liner. She was launched in 1905 and scrapped in 1932. In World War I she was first an armed merchant cruiser (AMC) and then a troop ship.
SS Antenor was a UK steam turbine passenger and refrigerated cargo liner launched in 1924. She was the third of five ships to bear the name.
RMS Saxonia was a British passenger liner built by John Brown & Company at Clydebank, Scotland for the Cunard Steamship Company for their Liverpool-Montreal service. She was the first of four almost identical sister ships built by Browns between 1954 and 1957 for UK-Montreal service. The first two of these ships, Saxonia and Ivernia were extensively rebuilt in 1962/3 as dual purpose liner/cruise ships. They were renamed Carmania and Franconia respectively and painted in the same green cruising livery as the Caronia. Carmania continued transatlantic crossings and cruises until September 1967 when she closed out Cunard's Montreal service. She and her sister had been painted white at the end of 1966 and from 1968 Carmania sailed as a full time cruise ship until withdrawal after arriving at Southampton on 31 October 1971. In August 1973 she was bought by the Soviet Union-based Black Sea Shipping Company and renamed SS Leonid Sobinov. The ship was scrapped in 1999.
HMS Hector was a UK steam turbine passenger and refrigerated cargo liner launched in 1924. She was the fourth of six civilian ships to bear the name.
RMS Ivernia was a Saxonia class ocean liner, built in 1955 by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland for Cunard Line, for their transatlantic passenger service between the UK and Canada. In 1963 she was rebuilt as a cruise ship and renamed RMS Franconia, after the famous pre-war liner RMS Franconia. She continued to sail for Cunard until being withdrawn from service and laid up in 1971. In 1973 she was sold to the Soviet Union's Far Eastern Shipping Company and, renamed SS Fedor Shalyapin, cruised around Australia and the far East. In 1980 she was transferred to the Black Sea Shipping Company fleet, and for a time returned to cruising in the Mediterranean and around Europe. In 1989 she was transferred again, to the Odessa Cruise Company, and continued her career as a cruise ship until 1994. She was then laid up at Illichivsk, a Black Sea port 40 km southwest of Odesa, until 2004 when, as the Salona, she sailed to Alang, India, where she was scrapped.
SS Automedon was a Blue Funnel Line refrigerated cargo steamship. She was launched in 1921 on the River Tyne as one of a class of 11 ships to replace many of Blue Funnel's losses in the First World War.
James Clayton Barr was a Senior Commodore of the Cunard line.
Yelkenci was a 7,052 GRT refrigerated cargo ship which was built in 1943 for the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) as Empire Camp. She was sold in 1946 and renamed Valacia. In 1951, she was sold and renamed New York City. A further sale in 1955 saw her renamed Loch Morar. A final sale to Turkish owners saw her renamed Yelkenci. She served with them until scrapped in 1971.
Inkosi was a 6,618 GRT refrigerated cargo liner which was built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne for the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT). She was hired by the Royal Navy in 1940 for use as an ocean boarding vessel, but was sunk in an air raid before she could be used for this purpose. The ship was salvaged, converted to a cargo ship and passed to the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT), who renamed her Empire Chivalry. In 1946 she was sold and renamed Planter. She served until 1958, when she was scrapped.
RMS Franconia was an ocean liner operated by the Cunard Line from 1922 to 1956. The liner was second of three liners named Franconia which served the Cunard Line, the others being RMS Franconia built in 1910 and the third Franconia in 1963.
The first RMS Saxonia was a passenger ship of the British Cunard Line. Between 1900 and 1925, Saxonia operated on North Atlantic and Mediterranean passenger routes, and she saw military service during World War I (1914–1918).
Sir James Gordon Partridge Bisset, CBE, RD was a British merchant sea captain who served as Commodore of the Cunard White Star Line (1944–47). He documented his fifty-year sea career in a three volume autobiography: Sail Ho! My Early Years at Sea (1958); Tramps and Ladies – My Early Years in Steamers (1959) and Commodore – War, Peace and Big Ships (1961). In addition, Bisset authored Lifeboat Efficiency (1924) which became the primary text used by the British Merchant Marine until the Second World War for instructing merchant seaman in lifeboat utilization and handling, and Ship Ahoy ! : Nautical Notes for Ocean Travellers (c.1930), a treatise on shipboard operations for the edification of passengers. He served in or commanded Cunard liners including Carpathia, Caronia, Franconia, Mauretania, Aquitania, Berengaria, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.
United Kingdom
Royal Navy 
