The S.S. United States

Shortly before noon on Wednesday, February 19, 2025, the luxury superliner S.S. United States began its final voyage. With news helicopters hovering overhead and escorted by five tugs, the largest passenger ship ever built in America slowly departed its berth in Philadelphia, bound for Florida’s panhandle. Its last journey will end 180 feet beneath the sea where the great liner will become the world’s largest artificial reef. News media marked the solemn occasion: “The S.S. United States Is Going Down for Good,” read the front-page headline in The New York Times on Friday, February 21, 2025.

In a striking contrast, more than seventy years ago, the S. S. United States made the front page of the Times on a decidedly happier occasion: “Six Hour Welcome Greets New Liner on First Trip Here.” (June 24, 1952.)  The New York Daily News story that day trumpeted “The Queenly U.S. Gets N.Y.’s Bow.” In their coverage of the event, another of New York’s numerous newspapers, the Daily Mirror, described the scene: “The nation’s new queen of the seas, the superliner United States, yesterday gingerly threaded her way through a harbor clogged with hundreds of shrilling small craft and, under a canopy of helicopters, blimps and planes, majestically eased her white-and-ebony bulk up against her pier after the most tremendous welcome ever accorded a vessel here.”

The Daily News story reported that the ship’s Captain, Commodore Harry Manning, speculated that on her upcoming first transatlantic voyage, his new command might make a bid for the transatlantic speed record. As it happened, Manning’s prediction proved exactly correct. On its return from Southampton, England to New York, the giant superliner did indeed break the speed record, and on July 18, 1952, New York City went all-out to celebrate the achievement with a ticker-tape parade.

To research the story of the American superliner and the City’s welcoming event, researchers can turn to Municipal Archives collections. The Mayor Impellitteri records, and the files of the Mayor’s Reception Committee, then under the direction of City Greeter Grover Whelan, are an especially rich resource. In addition, the Department of Ports and Trades photograph collection provides unique visual documentation.

By the early 1950s, Whalen had perfected the art of staging a ticker-tape parade. He organized thirty-three parades in just three years from 1949 through 1952. Researchers reviewing collection contents will quickly see that no detail was too small for Whalen and his staff as they planned for the ticker-tape parade, City Hall reception, and luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria Starlight Roof.

Although less voluminous, the subject file for the reception in Mayor Impellitteri’s records also contains informative items. Among them are a transcript of the Mayor’s remarks at the City Hall reception. Printed in a giant font, suitable to be read from a lectern, Impellitteri’s speech praised Commodore Harry Manning, Captain of the ship: “That the United States [ship] deserves all the praise and admiration she has received—both here and abroad—goes without saying. But I submit that there is a human factor within the greatness of the ship which is equally deserving of tribute. A ship, after all, no matter how perfect in mechanical detail is nothing without her caption and crew. It is in recognition of that fact that we gather here today to honor Commodore Harry Manning, Captain of the S.S. United States, and through him, the 1,000-man team which make up his crew.”

The Habitual Hero

Mayor Impellitteri continued on to say that this was not Captain Manning’s first time in a ticker-tape parade. Grover Whalen’s very capable assistant Gertrude Lyons prepared a memo with biographical information about Manning for the Mayor’s speech-writers. Her memo detailed an incident in 1929 when Manning, then the first officer on the ship “America,” came upon an Italian freighter sinking in the Atlantic. Manning volunteered to take a lifeboat with seven men across a quarter-mile of raging sea to rescue the half-frozen Italian crewmen. Manning’s action saved 32 men, and upon his return to New York, the City gave him a hero’s welcome with a ticker-tape parade. As Ms. Lyons wrote, “This is but one instance which led to Commodore Manning being referred to as the ‘habitual hero’.”

The Mayor included the rescue story in his speech, but omitted another significant event detailed in Lyons’ memo. She explained how in 1937 Manning had been on leave from his ship to serve as navigator for Amelia Earhart on her proposed around the world flight. “In Honolulu, the plane skidded on a take-off and cracked up. No one was hurt, but Manning had to return to his ship before the plane could be repaired and the flight resumed without him. This was the flight on which Amelia Earhart lost her life.”

The Reception Committee folders also include copies of two short documents with “Suggested Remarks for Commodore Manning at City Hall” scrawled on the top. “Just a few thoughts for consideration,” Whalen wrote. No detail too small!

Sleek as a Shark

Reading Manning’s biography, it is perhaps not surprising that Time magazine featured him on the cover of their June 23, 1952, issue; a copy is in the Whalen collection. In ten lavishly illustrated pages the news magazine told the full story of America’s new “Luxury Liner.” As described in the article, “The superliner is the dreamboat of William Francis Gibbs, 65, crack naval architect and famed designer of World War II’s Liberty ships. Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. made it come true.”

The story explained how Congress appropriated $42 million of the total $79 million cost of the ship not only to enhance the country’s prestige, but also to bolster its military readiness. During wartime, the ship’s 241,000-horse-power steam engines could move 14,000 troops, with equipment, halfway around the world, nonstop, without refueling. “For all her size, the hull is sleek as a shark to help her outrun submarines.”

During peacetime, the ship could transport 2,000 passengers and 1,000 crew in air-conditioned comfort, the first ocean liner with that amenity. Federal requirements necessary for the potential naval use of the vessel created challenges for interior designers Dorothy Marckwald and Anne Urquart. Using 100% fireproof materials, their interiors were hailed as a masterpiece of what is now called “mid-century modern.”

The S.S. United States went on to cross the Atlantic 800 times, but the 1952 Time story correctly foresaw the downward trajectory of transatlantic travel by ocean liner. “All liners are waging a losing battle against the airlines. Five years ago, only 30% of transatlantic travel was by air. This year it will reach about 40%.”

In 1969, the United States Lines took their flagship vessel out of service and moored it in Norfolk, Virginia. It later berthed at Philadelphia until its final voyage that began last week. The  S.S. United States Conservancy, a non-profit, bought the vessel in 2011. The Conservancy is headed by Susan Gibbs, granddaughter of the ship’s designer William Francis Gibbs. Having failed to find a permanent home for the liner, the Conservancy agreed to the planned sinking of the ship to serve as a coral reef. The Conservancy is now planning a land-based S.S. United States museum.

It is unlikely that any of the thousands of spectators at the parade for Commodore Manning and the crew of the S.S. United States in 1952 gave much thought to the fate of the great liner when it reached the end of its useful life. But if they had, perhaps they would like the idea of its new role as habitat for sea creatures.