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Ile de France was built for
Compagnie Generale Transalantigue, or
better known as the French Line. The
French Government provided a subsidy to
help build Ile de
France so French ships could
challenge the British and German liners
that were dominating the Atlantic run. As
the French intended their next liner to
be the largest and fastest in the world,
they used this ship to try out new
designs. The only liners larger at that
time were the White Star Line’s
45,324-ton Olympic, Cunard’s
45,646-ton Aquitania and the
Hamburg Amerika Line’s Big Three of
over 50,000 tons. Although Ile de
France was not the largest or fastest
liner in service at that time, she did
hold records for carrying the highest
percentage of first class passengers. Her
modern interiors were credited with
attracting this lucrative trade. Ile
de France could carry 670 1st, 408
2nd and 509 3rd class passengers.
Ile de France set out on her
maiden voyage from Le Havre - Plymouth
and New York June 22nd 1927. Although
that crossing showed she had serious
vibration problems, the French Line put
off repairs until her first refit in
1933. Ile de France
was docked in New York when World War Two
broke out in September 1939. With French
ports being targeted by German aircraft
at that time, the French Line laid
Ile de France up at
New York until they loaned her to the
British Admiralty in March 1940. The
British used Ile de
France for carrying cargo to
Europe and Singapore until France fell to
Germany in June 1940. This led to her
being formally seized by the British to
serve as a troopship.
After being operated as a troopship
out of Saigon and Bombay until 1943,
Ile de France joined
the trooping convoys on the North
Atlantic until the end of the war. The
completion of the repatriation of
American, Canadian and Indochina
servicemen in 1947 allowed the French
Line to have Ile de
France converted back to her
former glory. Her third funnel was
removed at that time, as it served no
real purpose. Many ships of that time
were fitted with an extra funnel as
people thought the more funnels a ship
had, the better it looked. The first
liners to be designed with cosmetic
funnels were the Olympic class of the
White Star Line. Their fourth funnel only
served as an air vent.
Below, Ile de France
arriving at New York post World War
11
le de France set out on her
first post war Atlantic crossing between
Le Havre and New York July 21st 1949. By
1958, she had lost most of her highly
profitable first class passengers to
newer ships and the ever-expanding
transatlantic airlines. Being the pride
of France, the French Line tried to
dispose of Ile de
France quietly by selling her to a
Japanese scrapping company. She set out
for a Japanese scrap yard in 1959 under
the name Faransu Maru. Before
being dismantled, she was leased to a
film company to be used as a prop in the
film ‘The Last Voyage’. This
enraged the French Line to an extent they
forced the film company to cover all
traces of her identity before filming.
After being partially sunk and wrecked by
the special effects team, she had to be
re-floated before being towed to the
scrap yard at Osaka/Japan.
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