QM2 - Troop Ship?

Tom,

That was WWI. Basically we (the allies) seized all major ships of the
German shipping lines and redistributed them to US and British lines
based on their respective losses due to u-boat attacks.

The Navy did use several of the ships prior to their final delivery to
the lines. An interesting tie in with other threads is that it was
during the rebuilding of Vaterland into Leviathan that William Francis
Gibbs first came to prominence. While the ship could be seized the
builders were under no obligation to provide blueprints etc. to the US
builders. Blohm and Voss demanded one million dollars for the plans,
the Navy said "no thanks" and hired Gibbs to reverse engineer the ship
and build plans. He did so. He went on to become the dean of
American naval architecture and most famous for his designs for SS
America and finally "The Big U" SS United States.

David



"Tom & Linda" wrote in message ...

Didn't we also have a German ship at some point that the Navy used? I seem
to recall something.... though maybe it was a WWI ship.

--Tom

Thanks for the history lesson, David, it was interesting.

Becca -----wants more...

Norwegian Dawn http://www.cruisemaster.com/dawn.htm
Sleazy3 http://www.cruisemaster.com/sleazy3.htm
MOAGC http://www.motherofallgroupcruises.com/


David Seifert wrote:
Tom,

That was WWI. Basically we (the allies) seized all major ships of the
German shipping lines and redistributed them to US and British lines
based on their respective losses due to u-boat attacks.

The Navy did use several of the ships prior to their final delivery to
the lines. An interesting tie in with other threads is that it was
during the rebuilding of Vaterland into Leviathan that William Francis
Gibbs first came to prominence. While the ship could be seized the
builders were under no obligation to provide blueprints etc. to the US
builders. Blohm and Voss demanded one million dollars for the plans,
the Navy said "no thanks" and hired Gibbs to reverse engineer the ship
and build plans. He did so. He went on to become the dean of
American naval architecture and most famous for his designs for SS
America and finally "The Big U" SS United States.

David



"Tom & Linda" wrote in message ...

Didn't we also have a German ship at some point that the Navy used? I seem
to recall something.... though maybe it was a WWI ship.

--Tom

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