Steamship EUROPA, Maiden Voyage, March 1930 |
Description: This one is for the ocean liner enthusiasts. The Movietone archives have about half an hour of film of Norddeutscher Lloyd's steamship EUROPA on its maiden voyage, and I've included just about all of it here. Half of it is a near-real-time log of the ship docking at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. The first six minutes of the film show EUROPA before her first crossing. According viewer Sean Sparks, the first scenes in the video were shot in Bremerhaven. Starting at 00:48, the video shows EUROPA at anchor off Cowes, and at 2:20 the scene shifts to Cherbourg. [Note: the title of this video lists Le Havre as one of the ports of call. This is an error. It also misspells Southampton.'> At 05:24 are two brief shots with a veddy British voice-over describing the EUROPA. One of the things he mentions is the "Blue Riband," the recognition as the fastest Transatlantic liner. The EUROPA did in fact claim the prize, crossing (in rough conditions) 18 minutes faster than her sister ship, the BREMEN. 06:07 the EUROPA enters New York harbor and anchors at quarantine. The MACOM, New York City's greeting ship, meets her there. As can be seen on the film, it's a cold grey March day in New York. At 10:37 the EUROPA proceeds slowly from quarantine to the Brooklyn Army Terminal where it is to tie up. Because its size, it could not use any of the Hudson River piers. From 13:06 to 28:55 is film of the docking procedure. It took some time, and a brace of tugboats, to get the giant ship to swing around. Movietone had two cameras, one at the end of the adjacent pier and one on shore, filming the process. I've done my best to put these into chronological order. At 29:00 Captain Johnsen poses on the bridge for photographers, but resists all efforts of the newsreel cameramen to get him to talk. At 30:22 (after the credits) is the only film in the Movietone Archive of the EUROPA's sister ship, the BREMEN. You'll note the longer stacks, which were fitted to both ships in 1930. The original short, motorliner-style stacks allowed too much smoke to fall on deck. While the BREMEN was lost in WWII, the EUROPA survived and was ceded to France as war reparations. After extensive restoration and re-fitment, it became the French Line's LIBERTÉ and continued to sail the Atlantic until 1962. 
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