Hi All,
No aircraft & no pictures I'm afraid but enough clues in the text. See if you can fill in the blanks (From AAAAAAA -> IIIIIIIIII). 1 point for each correct answer
Although the name AAAAAAA was reserved for the last of the trio, in the earliest stages of detail revisions, it was reshuffled and applied to the first. In her construction, it was agreed by Pirrie and Ismay that money would be no object, to create the greatest ship to sail the seas. There was to be a swimming pool on the ship, extravagant Turkish baths, and a gymnasium. Eleven styles of decor, from Jacobean to Empire, would adorn the first class suites, an extra tariff a la carte restaurant like those of the Hamburg American Line of Germany. Though the AAAAAAA was an extremely dense ship, designed for 1,054 passengers in first class, 510 in second, and 1,020 for third, she was spacious as a palace, and a smashing success. "The AAAAAAA is a marvel and has given unbounded satisfaction." radioed Ismay to Pirrie in Britain while aboard her maiden voyage in June of 1911. Even such, her early years were plagued with misfortune. She had collided with the cruiser H.M.S. EEEEE, sending her back to Harland and Wolff for repairs, and thus delaying work on her sister BBBBBBB. She also dropped a propeller and almost sunk a tugboat, sending her back to the shipyard once again, further delaying work on BBBBBBB and pushing the younger sister's maiden voyage back from March of 1912, to April of that year. After the BBBBBBB tragedy, AAAAAAA was recalled for a refit to fix one of BBBBBBB's flaws that led to the sinking, to add a double hull, make her watertight bulkheads extend higher, and to reduce capacity, although she was spacious to begin with. Just as well. Larger ships, once thought of as being safer, were now avoided at all costs, so when the AAAAAAA came back to service, she was heralded as literally, "two ships in one" and that the new bulkheads provided "the utmost safety of the ship." As for Ismay, well, he fell out of the shipping business after the BBBBBBB went down. During World War I, the AAAAAAA was dazzle painted for camouflage, and rescued the crew of the sinking battleship H.M.S. FFFFFFFFF after hitting a mine. This, in retrospect, may have been a rather idiotic decision by the captain, for the motionless AAAAAAA would have been one huge sitting duck, and what a prize she could have been to any U-boat in the surrounding waters. She had also sighted a German U-boat that tried to sink her, but instead turned the tables and rammed into the submarine. In 1919, the AAAAAAA became the first ship to be oil-fired instead of coal burning. This way, White Star saved a lot of money for cutting the firemen's department from over a hundred down to six. Over the war, a German mine or torpedo had struck the third sister, the CCCCCCCC then renamed DDDDDDDDD after the BBBBBBB disaster, and she sank. Thus, White Star was left with only one big ship, the AAAAAAA. So as a war prize, the German ships GGGGGGGG and HHHHHHHH were handed over to White Star and became the Majestic and Homeric respectively. Throughout the 1920's AAAAAAA remained to be a popular ship, and White Star was talking about putting in a new running mate for the AAAAAAA and Majestic, named Oceanic, that would replace the Homeric, which was slow and ill-suited for the North Atlantic, but great for cruising. Then, unexpectedly, came the stock market crash of 1929, and White Star, along with Cunard, were in hard times. The British government decided to take action, and decided to grant them a enough money to provide themselves, as long as Cunard and White Star merged. With this merger in 1934, many ships were marked on the surplus list to be sold or scrapped. Among the ships placed were Cunard's Mauretania, White Star's Majestic, the Homeric and of course, the AAAAAAA. All of these ships to be replaced by one . . . the new IIIIIIIIII. The AAAAAAA wasn't going to go quietly, though. On May 16, 1934 the AAAAAAA rammed and sank the Nantucket Lightship, killing seven. The AAAAAAA was decommissioned in April 1935, with her future in doubt. Rumor had it that the Italian government was going to buy the AAAAAAA and convert her into a troopship. Nothing came to pass. So in October, the ship was sold for scrap and dismantled at Jarrow then completed at Iverkiething in 1937. The life of the AAAAAAA spanned almost a quarter of a century, the only ship to live up to Ismay and Pirrie's dreams.
TTFN
snafu
