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HMS Queen Elizabeth and RMS Queen Mary make friendship official
8 February 2025
Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth is now formally linked with the flagship of the UK’s Merchant Fleet, cruise liner Queen Mary 2.
Beneath a portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II – who named both vessels – aboard the liner, their two captains put their names to the formal affiliation, watched by senior figures from the cruise firm and the Senior Service.
Queen Mary 2 is flagship of the world-famous Cunard Line while HMS Queen Elizabeth was the Royal Navy flagship until handing over to her sister ship HMS Prince of Wales just a few weeks ago.
Links between the two flagships began back in 2017 when the carrier was in the final stages of construction in Rosyth.
Then Commanding Officer Captain Jerry Kyd and the liner's Master Captain Aseem Hashmi decided both Cunard and the Royal Navy could benefit from a connection.
The paths of the two vessels don’t often cross – the liner passed the carrier in October 2018 when HMS Queen Elizabeth was anchored in New York Harbour on her maiden visit to the USA.
But there have been exchange visits by sailors from each ship to the other and the formal affiliation will build on that already-strong relationship of cooperation, coordination and collaboration on a variety of mutual current operational demands and training needs of the future.
It is a real pleasure to see the long-standing relationship between the Royal Navy and Cunard Lines recognised through the affiliation of our two ships
Our organisations have a great deal in common but the bond that we share goes deeper than that found between all professional mariners.
Cunard Lines have lent their maritime strength to the United Kingdom in times of war since their founding and this affiliation is an important reminder of that shared heritage between country, industry and the Royal Navy.”
Captain Hashmi added: “Over the past 170 years the heartbeat of the Cunard Line has been as one with the heartbeat of the Royal Navy – Cunard ships have answered the call of Great Britain in every major conflict from Crimea in 1853 to the first Gulf War in 1990.”
In doing so, the line has lost heavily supporting Britain’s war effort. In World War 1, four out of five of the 25 Cunard ships pressed into service were lost to enemy action, most famously the Lusitania, torpedoed off Ireland in 1915.
A generation later, the firm’s liners were again called upon, especially on the Atlantic run, ferrying troops from North America to Europe – as many as 16,000 soldiers in a single crossing, more than 1½ million personnel in all.
Such was the effort, Churchill reckoned the liners had helped to shorten WW2 by at least one year. More recently, Cunard’s cargo vessel Atlantic Conveyor was used to transport vital kit to the Falklands during the 1982 conflict – only to be hit by an Exocet missile when she arrived. Six Cunard crew, including her Master Captain Ian North, were among those killed.
“It is difficult to establish the exact number of Cunard personnel who died while serving their country with the Royal Navy,” Capt Hashmi added. “Many Cunard personnel received the Distinguished Service Order; Distinguished Service Cross, Military Cross and one was awarded the Victoria Cross.”
The luxury liner is precisely 200 feet longer than the carrier and displaces 15,000 more tonnes. She spends the summer on the historic Blue Riband route between the UK and New York… and the winters typically in the Caribbean, with nearly 1,200 crew catering for the needs of upwards of 2,700 guests.
The Portsmouth-based carrier is about to enter her first refit after more than seven years of trials, training and operations around the globe.