The Queen Mary liner launched to great acclaim, fulfilling one half of the Cunard line chairman Sir Percy Bates’ dream of a two-ship weekly express service between the Britain and New York. With everything about the Queen Mary exceeding expectations, it was time to build her a sister ship. Bates negotiated a £5 million loan and awarded the contract to the team that made the Queen Mary. The circumstances of QE’s launch, of course, would be considerably different.

On this day, September 27, in 1938, the Queen Elizabeth ship was christened and launched. There mood was much more subdued than for the launch of the Queen Mary, owing to the war clouds gathering on the horizon. Queen Elizabeth herself acknowledged as much, reading a statement from King George V, himself unable to attend due to pressing state business: “This ceremony, to which many thousands have looked forward so eagerly, must now take place under circumstances far different from those for which they had hoped.”

The QE was ready to sail by spring of 1940, when war was becoming more and more of a certainty. To avoid German air patrols she was painted gray. No more conversion into a war transport ship could be done in Britain: there was too big a risk of air raids of saboteurs. Instead, the QE was sent to New York to berth along her sister ship and complete a wartime overhaul. Both ships served extensively in WW II, and both lived to tell the tale, earning the nickname “Gray Ghost”.