The Magic Stick

The Majestic began her life as the Bismarck  and was launched by Countess Hanna von Bismarck on June 14, 1914.  She was intended to be the largest and grandest of HAPAG’s Big Three, coming on the heels of Imperator and Vaterland already in service on the Atlantic.  At a length of 956 feet and 100 feet wide she was the largest ship in the world. 

Majestic passes Bishop Rock lighthouse.  1:1250 model by Carlo Marquardt.  Lighthouse by Coastlines.

Like the Vaterland, she was built at Blohm & Voss and like her predecessors, her first class public rooms were designed by noted architects Charles Mewes and Arthur Davis.  Her two forward funnels had their uptakes moved from the center to the side.  This allowed for broad expanses of public rooms with uninterrupted vistas looking fore and aft.  Elaborate skylights capped the high ceilings of these rooms.  The third funnel was a dummy and was used to balance the ship’s profile. 

 The height of luxury.  The swimming pool on board the RMS Majestic.  From Popular Mechanics, July 1922.      

Bismarck was still being fitted out when the Great War began. Construction stopped as naval vessels took precedence.  As a result, the unfinished ship sat out the war.

Majestic in floating drydock, Southampton. January 1932. German Federal Archives, Aktuelle-Bilder-Centrale, Georg Pahl (Bild 102).  

After being ceded to Britain under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the incomplete uncompleted ship was purchased jointly by the White Star and Cunard Lines, together with Imperator.  Construction of the ship resumed, albeit slowly in 1919-1920.  Renamed, Majestic, she was was ostensibly a replacement for the pre-war 50,000-ton Olympic-class liner Britannic which was lost in the Aegean in 1916.

Majestic at sea.

When she finally emerged from the shipyard for trials in March 1922, she was painted in HAPAG colors and carried her intended name.  White Star officials accepted the liner in April and many locals stood silently at pier as the liner departed for Southampton.  It was, perhaps, the most visible mark of Germany’s maritime defeat.

The Majestic was the largest passenger liner afloat in the 1920s and would remain so until the Normandie.  Her size, elegance, and prestige made her one of the most popular ships of the period.  With Olympic and Homeric, she maintained White Star’s weekly express service to New York.  Sailors and stevedores dubbed her the “Magic Stick.”  She was in direct competition with her former fleetmates, Cunard’s Berengaria and United States Line’s Leviathan.

Majestic in harbor with Leviathan (left) and Berengaria (ahead).

In 1928, Majestic was extensively refitted enjoyed a boom year for passenger lists, but numbers fell slightly in 1929 and then the Great Depression set in during the 1930s.

During slack periods as Atlantic crossings fell during the Depression, Majestic, along with other liners, was employed in summer recreational cruises from New York to Halifax, Nova Scotia.  She was among the first ocean liners with a cinema capable of screening talkies.

Majestic alongside the Nova Scotian Hotel at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1934. Pier 20 is to the left and Pier 21 to the right.  1934.  National Harbours Board, Canada.

In 1934 in the North Atlantic an enormous wave smashed over the bridge of the Majestic, seriosuly injuring the first officer and White Star's final commodore, Edgar J. Trant.  That same year, Majestic became the first commercial vessel to use the newly constructed King George V Graving Dock.  Following the merger of White Star and Cunard in 1934, Majestic served the new company until 1936.

Left in her wake.

After being laid up at Southampton, she was sold to the Admiralty and converted into a training ship.  She was renamed HMS Caledonia.

Majestic in dock at Southampton, for conversion into HMS Caledonia, via martimequest.com Photographer unknown.  Ca. 1936.

In September 1939, Caledonia caught fire and burnt out, sinking at her moorings. The wreck was sold in March 1940 to Thomas W. Ward for scrap, but it was not until July 1943, that the remains of Caledonia were raised and towed to the scrapyard.  Such was the end of the last of Albert Ballin’s elegant trio.

RMS Majestic (1922-1936) Built by Blohm & Voss Shipbuilders, Hamburg, Germany.  56,551 GRT, 956 feet long, 100 feet wide.  Steam turbines geared to quadruple screw.  Service speed 23.5 knots.  As completed, 2,145 passengers (750 first class, 545 second class, 850 third class).