Description:

PASSENGER SHIP NORMANDIE IS REBUILT POSTER
Rare wartime poster, 26 x 40.5 in. mounted to linen, headed: 'So that the one time majestic QUEEN of the SEAS may again race across the oceans THE NORMANDIE rises again NOW THE USS LAFAYETTE' The poster bears 12 photo illustration of the famous French passenger ship which was towed from the berth at which she burned to Todd Shipyards on Nov. 3, 1943 to be rebuilt and refitted. The poster describes the initial salvage work, and was issued by suppliers Oaktite Products, Inc. in New York. Fine condition. SS Normandie was a French ocean liner built in Saint-Nazaire, France, for the French Line Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT). She entered service in 1935 as the largest and fastest passenger ship afloat, crossing the Atlantic in a record 4.14 days, and remains the most powerful steam turbo-electric-propelled passenger ship ever built. In 1942, while being converted to a troopship, the liner caught fire and capsized onto her port side and came to rest, half submerged, on the bottom of the Hudson River at Pier 88. On 20 December 1941, the Auxiliary Vessels Board officially recorded President Franklin D. Roosevelt's approval of Normandie's transfer to the U.S. Navy. Plans called for the vessel to be turned into a troopship. In one of the largest and most expensive salvage operations of its kind, estimated at $5 million at the time, the ship was stripped of superstructure and righted on 7 August 1943. However, the cost of restoring her was determined to be too great and she was eventually scrapped.

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September 10, 2025 10:00 AM EDT
Elkton, MD, US

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC

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