| Original caption: “‘Queen’ Brings 14,860 Yanks — These GIs arriving among 14,860 veterans back from Europe on the giant liner Queen Elizabeth, which arrived in New York yesterday, can hardly wait to get their feet on solid American soil. Hanging bodily from portholes, they cheer as the big troopship pulls into her pier.” United States soldiers peek through portholes on the Main Deck, A Deck, and B Deck on the starboard side, aft of the 2nd funnel, on board Royal Mail Steamer (RMS) Queen Elizabeth, requisitioned for service as a troopship, as she enters New York Harbor to dock at Pier 90 on August 31, 1945. The ship’s degaussing cable and riveted construction are clearly visible. Arriving in 90-degree (32 degree Celsius) heat, soldiers threw hats, shirts, equipment, souvenirs, and paper, exuberantly celebrating their return to the United States. In 1942, Elizabeth had also been fitted with 4 miles of rubber-coated copper cable, wound around her enormous girth. This coil, suspended almost untidily alongside her fore deck before rising to run beneath the projection of the Promenade Deck, was known as a (degaussing) coil, named after Carl Friedrich Gauss (April 30, 1777 – February 23, 1855), an expert on magnetism, whose theories had enabled the Germans to produce new, lethal LMA/LMB magnetic mines at the start of the war. Electrically charged, the degaussing cable had the effect of neutralizing the magnetic field that had been induced in the ship’s hull whilst she was on the slip being built. The object of fitting the coil was hopefully to render the vessel immune from the recently introduced menace of the magnetic mine. RMS Queen Elizabeth, 1 of the 1st to be fitted with a degaussing cable, was able to generate enough current. She had a temporary degaussing cable installed in February 1940, and a permanent cable was installed in a major refit in Singapore in August. Smaller ships could not, and were degaussed periodically. A photograph of Queen Elizabeth’s degaussing cable as she docked in New York Harbor in 1941 revealed to the Nazi Germans that the Allies were using them. As the passengers disembarked on August 31, 1945, Cab Calloway’s (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) and Sammy Kaye’s (March 13, 1910 – June 2, 1987) bands greeted them with music. Nancy Norman (April 23, 1925 – May 27, 2024) sang “I Wanna Get Married” to wild applause. United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA(Director Herbert H. Lehman (March 28, 1878 – December 5, 1963); United States Army Air Force Colonel James M. Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997), Executive Officer, 2nd Bombardment Wing and film star, and Doctor Stephen Wise (March 17, 1874 – April 19, 1949), the President of the World Jewish Congress, were aboard. Queen Elizabeth was 1 of 5 vessels arriving that day, bringing 25,881 servicepeople from all over the world back home as part of Operation Magic Carpet. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0940.jpg |
| Image Size | 965.25 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2770 x 2100 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | August 31, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | New York |
| State or Province | New York |
| Country | United States |
| Archive | |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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