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35 • • • Chapter 4 Chapter 4 The stately ship, 1,000 feet long and barely camouflaged by a coat of gray paint, steamed past McNab’s Island, reducing speed at the north end as she entered the safety of the huge natural harbor at Halifax, Nova Scotia, in late summer 1943. The sheer grace of her main deck, the raked stem, and the three stacks slanting back from her superstructure made the Queen Mary unmistakeable in silhouette, and in daylight her lineage was undeniable. She was royalty in sackcloth, with clearly visible bloodlines . Her escorts, including a Royal Navy destroyer and the American aircraft carrier USS Ranger, had dropped astern, and the flagship of the Cunard–White Star Line—still regal despite bristling with retrofitted guns—sailed past the George’s Island lighthouse and then the Sambro Island lighthouse, the oldest in North America. She cruised past Pier 21, the processing point for immigrants to Canada, a cousin of New York’s Ellis Island. Naval and merchant vessels anchored out of the main channel crowded the harbor; the docks were insanely busy. Cranes lifted huge nets filled with provisions and equipment onto ships’ decks, some four deep at some berths, as the navies and merchant ships of nations at war prepared for the Atlantic crossing. Other ships were being repaired. The harbor was nearly overwhelmed by the vessels steaming in and out of the last stopping point before the long and dangerous journey to England. The Queen Mary slowed still more; outside the Narrows the crew began docking procedures at the Navy Yard, near the entrance to 36 • • • Project 9 Bedford Basin, the inner and most protected part of the harbor. Just visible in the northwest arm was Deadman’s Island, final resting place of several American prisoners of the War of 1812. Only twenty-six years earlier the area had been the scene of unimaginable horror. On 9 December, 1917 the Mont Blanc, a French ship loaded with munitions and explosive chemicals intended for the war raging across Europe, had collided with a Norwegian relief ship in the narrow channel to the basin. Sparks flew, the ship caught fire, and thousands turned out to watch as the Mont Blanc drifted into pier 6. Twenty minutes later the largest accidental explosion in history blew out windows fifty miles away, leveling much of Halifax, killing 1,600 to 2,000 people—reports vary—and injuring more than 9,000. Five years before that the harbor had been the quiet somber landfall for survivors of the Titanic’s collision with that iceberg in the North Atlantic; one hundred of the dead were buried in Fairview Lawn Cemetery in the center of old Halifax. On this ninth day of August 1943 history was calling again. Lines were secured, the gangplank rolled out, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, stout and bullish in a dark-gray pin-striped suit, his familiar blue polka-dotted bowtie, and a gray homburg, ambled onto the jetty. The five-day crossing from Glasgow had been shrouded in secrecy; to dispel suspicions about the identity of the large party boarding in Clydeside, the British had planted a story about a contingent of Holland ’s ministers, and to support the story posters had been plastered around the ship with messages in Dutch. Radio communications had been kept to a minimum; the VIP aboard was code-named Colonel Warden. Although the Battle of the North Atlantic was largely settled, German U-boats still prowled the shipping lanes, and the journey was perilous even with an escort of heavily armed warships. Immediately after they disembarked, the prime minister and his family were driven to the nearby train station. Despite the tight cloak of secrecy, Churchill was mildly amused to see a large crowd gathered, waving British flags and flashing the PM’s trademark V for victory. The Canadians cheered lustily when they recognized the famed stout figure, and, ever the showman, he listened and beamed as they sang stirring renditions of “Oh Canada” and “The Maple Leaf.” For about twenty minutes he stood for photographs, shook hands with dozens of admirers , and signed autographs.1 A short time later, unrecognized and unheralded, a smallish darkhaired man in a naval uniform—the only uniform found aboard that would fit him—descended the gangway, accompanied by a young attractive woman who held his arm. An astute observer familiar with 37 • • • Chapter 4 military decorations might have seen on his left chest a scarlet-and-blue ribbon...

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