19511776 Club
Lucile Connally christens the SS United States; the largest ocean liner built in America slides into the water at Newport News
Designed by William Francis Gibbs and launched from a dry dock for the first time in ocean-liner history, she is built to carry tourists in peace and divisions of soldiers to war.
The Cold War had made the Pentagon nervous about troop transport, and the Korean War had made it desperate — so the Navy and a private shipping company built something that had never existed before. On June 23, 1951, Lucile Connally, wife of U.S. Senator Tom Connally, christened and launched the SS United States at Newport News — the largest ocean liner ever constructed entirely in America. Designed by William Francis Gibbs and built in a dry dock for the first time in ocean-liner history, she had been engineered to carry passengers across the Atlantic in peacetime and divisions of soldiers to war. The following July, she would cross the Atlantic in three days, ten hours, and forty minutes and not give the Blue Riband back…
