Old Hong Kong’s 50-year-old shipwreck: how the world’s largest boat, Britain’s RMS Queen Elizabeth, sank on the seabed of Victoria Harbour – and it’s still there!
Fifty years ago, the RMS Queen Elizabeth – the largest ocean liner in the world at that time – arrived in Hong Kong. However, no one would have expected that the final destination of this titan was the seabed of Victoria Harbour. Today, parts of the wreck are still lying at the bottom of the seabed.
Why did this British cruise ship, which provided service between the UK and the US, sail to Hong Kong in July 1971? Who owned the ship? Why did it sink and what happened to the wreck? Let’s recall the ins and outs of the half-century-old shipwreck.
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Queen Elizabeth herself performed the launching ceremony on September 27, 1938. However, instead of entering passenger service after fitting out, RMS Queen Elizabeth was used as a troopship when the second world war broke out in late 1939. The ship finally started her secret voyage to New York in March 1940.
Together with liner RMS Queen Mary, the two Queens carried over two million servicemen and were credited by Winston Churchill as helping to shorten the war by a year.
After surviving the war, RMS Queen Elizabeth entered a regular transatlantic service in 1946. She remained a dominator in the transatlantic passenger trade until the advent of the faster and more economical jet airliner in the later 1950s.
Cunard finally retired the Queen Elizabeth liner in 1969, but the legend of the titan did not end here.
The following year RMS Queen Elizabeth started a new page when Hong Kong shipping magnate Tung Chao-yung, founder of the Orient Overseas Container Line (OCCL), bought the ship for US$3.2 million at an auction in 1970.
Dubbed “the Onassis of the East”, Tung had aspirations in both the sea business and education, believing deeply in the importance of knowledge. His intention to buy the Queen Elizabeth was to convert it into a floating university, namely Seawise University, a play on Tung’s initials. C.Y.
The ship arrived at Victoria Harbour in July 1971 and underwent refurbishment in the water between Tsing Yi Island and Stonecutters Island. Out of the blue, the vessel was set alight six days before the scheduled trial on January 15, 1972. Tung’s 34-year-old son Tung Chee-hwa – later the first chief executive of Hong Kong – was on board at the time and had to flee.
After a 24-hour firefight the vessel was completely destroyed and was finally declared a shipping hazard. The water sprayed on her by fireboats caused the burnt wreck to capsize and sink. An investigation into the mystery blaze was inconclusive, and while arson was widely suspect, no suspects were ever identified.
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Before the shipwreck completely sank into the sea, people grabbed a final chance to preserve the afterglow of the sea queen.
In 1974, it was used in a location shoot for the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, as the converted headquarters of MI6. Also, 5,000 collectable Parker pens were produced with material recovered from the wreck, whilst the flagpole and remnants of her last ensign adorn the wall of the marine police headquarters.
The wreck was eventually dismantled in 1975, with parts of it was removed and part used as reclaimed land at nearby Kai Tak Airport. It is estimated that around half of the wreck still lies on the seabed, and in the late 1990s, the last remains of the wreck were buried during land reclamation for the construction of Kwai Tsing Container Terminal 9.
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- Launched in 1938, Winston Churchill credits RMS Queen Elizabeth with shortening WW2 by a year after it was used to transport around a million troops
- She docked in Hong Kong 50 years ago after being bought by a Chinese shipping magnate to create a floating Seawise University – before a mystery fire struck