It was Gala Dinner Night on United States, a traditional ritual for the last evening at sea. All three dining rooms were decked out with streamers and balloons, as were the passengers in their party hats and finest clothes. It had been announced over the public address system that United States would pass Bishop Rock at about six in the morning. Most of the passengers planned to stay up through the night and continue to party, a prospect that the already overworked crew dreaded.
Outside, the overcast skies continued to darken. Thunderhead clouds grew larger on the horizon, and the winds freshened from the northeast. United States was steaming into a full gale, with winds gusting up to 60 mile per hour. As visibility deteriorated, the radar went on the fritz. Manning became so frustrated that he pushed the repair technician aside and shoved his finger into the device. The shock flung the commodore against the bridge bulkhead, but amazingly he was uninjured.38
As he stood on the bridge watching the prow rise and fall, William Francis may have recalled that it was the same kind of weather that kept Mauretania from taking the Blue Riband on her maiden voyage in 1907. That Manning was still pouring on the steam through fog and gale-force winds must have made Gibbs’s blood boil. Not only that, but the commodore was disobeying company orders that the record was not to be beaten by a big margin. Barring an accident, it looked like the margin would be huge.
As the ship began to sway ominously from side to side, Assistant Bell Captain Krudener, dressed in his full uniform of cutaway and epaulets, stood like a sentry next to the big swinging doors leading to the first-class dining room, pulling them open each time he saw a couple sweep down the grand staircase. Up in the musicians’ gallery, the white-jacketed players continued to serenade the diners.
Commodore Manning entered the dining room and took his seat at the captain’s table. Sitting on his right side was the guest of honor, Margaret Truman. He had reason to be proud. He announced to the table that on July 6, United States had broken the record set the day before, clocking 814 miles and tearing through the rough Atlantic at 36.17 knots.
Also at the captain’s table were William Francis and Vera Gibbs, sculptress Gwen Lux, Newport News Shipbuilding’s William Blewett, and Gibbs & Cox chief engineer Walter Bachman. “Since Mr. Gibbs asked me to sit at his table with Mrs. Gibbs and a young woman who is traveling with her,” Bachman wrote Elaine Kaplan, “sundry misguided people think perhaps I am somebody. As a result, I have met a large proportion of the celebrities on the ship.”39
During dinner, Gibbs asked Blewett if he knew what Miss Lux’s sculpture hanging above them represented. Blewett, who knew more about engineering than art, said that he did not. Gravely, Gibbs explained the meaning of the sculpture’s German name, and proceeded to explain in great detail how the figures represented the four seasons.
Gibbs’s erudition impressed the dinner guests, especially Blewett.
Lux could barely contain her laughter. “Mr. Gibbs was making it all up,” the artist told the table. “The four figures represent the four freedoms, and he knows it perfectly well!”40
In his letter to Kaplan, Bachman also quoted something written by Don Iddon, but not published: “This has been the maiden voyage, but United States has behaved like no maiden. She is a very fast lady, a woman of the world, sleek, sophisticated, and maybe a little ruthless.”41
Bachman’s letter, to be sent ashore as soon as United States reached Le Havre, was marked “Airmail.”
The party moved on to the lounges and ballrooms. Horse racing started at 9:15 in the first class ballroom; the ponies were aluminum, moved by bellboys across the dance floor following rolls of the dice, which moved some horses faster than others. For those who wanted the silver screen, the theater offered She’s Working Her Way Through College, starring Virginia Mayo and Ronald Reagan.42
The gala began at 10:30 P.M. Revelers in party hats drank champagne and spun around to the strains of the orchestra, whose tunes probably included Cole Porter’s exuberant “Ridin’ High.” In the wee hours of the morning, Laura Franklin, who was “full of champagne,” headed up a conga line consisting of Margaret Truman, Drucie Snyder, and a few newspaper reporters. After circling the ballroom, they paraded down the enclosed promenade deck, then up several flights of stairs to the bridge.
The two women, braving the pelting rain and ignoring the “do not enter” signs, found Commodore Harry Manning, William Francis Gibbs, and a clutch of officers on the bridge, their faces illuminated by the pale light of the ship’s compass.
When Manning saw the conga line burst into the bridge house, he bellowed, “What are you doing here?”
He then saw Margaret Truman.
“Miss Truman, we are about to break the record,” he said quietly. “Would you like to put your finger on the wheel?”
Margaret wrapped her fingers around the spokes for a few moments.
“Let Laura do it,” Margaret said, looking at Commodore Manning. The president’s daughter let go of the wheel and moved aside. Laura put her fingers on the spokes.
A few seconds of this was too much for Manning, even if it was General Franklin’s daughter.
“Please leave!” he hissed in Laura’s ear.
The two women retreated to the ballroom, with the revelers in tow. Laura then went down to her parents’ suite to wake up her father.
“Daddy, we’re about to break the record!” she shouted.
General Franklin rubbed his eyes and looked out the porthole at the ocean racing past. The ship was going fast. Too fast, he thought. He started cursing. Manning was defying company orders to slow down in bad weather.43
By then, hundreds of passengers had packed the first-class ballroom, champagne glasses in hand and tension building. The captain promised to sound the whistle if the record were broken. At 6:16 A.M., Manning and the officers spotted the flashing Bishop Rock lighthouse, perched on an outcrop, through the fog. As she swept by the stone beacon that marked the end of the eastbound Blue Riband course, her three whistles let loose a great bellow that shook the entire ship. Within seconds, the whistle blasts were followed by popping champagne corks, music from three orchestras, and celebratory cheers and singing from 1,660 passengers. The party spilled out onto the promenades. People sang and danced as the musicians marched up and down the decks playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The stewards didn’t cheer quite as loudly: “The crew could have cared less,” deck steward Jim Green recalled. “They were so tired.”44
Margaret Truman was with Commodore Manning on the bridge. Both had their eyes fixed on the clock. “Congratulations!” she said, her face beaming. They shook hands, and Manning walked away, exhausted.
United States’ time for the eastbound voyage was 3 days, 10 hours, and 42 minutes. She had slashed the Queen Mary’s record time by an astounding ten hours. On this first run, steaming so fast that the Atlantic waters stripped most of the black paint off her bow, United States achieved an average speed of 35.59 knots, a full four knots faster than Queen Mary’s earlier record run.45
As the ship neared Le Havre, France, her first port of call, William Francis urged his colleagues that “we should let the ship speak for itself and not tell the British and French in vainglorious terms what we have accomplished.”46