Built by John Brown and Company at Clydebank, Scotland, as Hull 552,[5] she was launched on 27 September 1938 and named in honour of Queen Elizabeth, the wife of King George VI.

Her design was an improvement of that of Queen Mary, resulting in a vessel 12 feet longer and several thousand tons greater GRT, making her the largest passenger liner ever built for a record 56 years.

[10] Supposedly, the liner started to slide into the water before the Queen could officially launch her, and acting sharply, she managed to smash a bottle of Australian red over the ship’s bow just before it slid out of reach.

[9][10] It was announced that on 23 August 1939 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were to visit the ship and tour the engine room and that 24 April 1940 was to be the proposed date of her maiden voyage.

[9] Queen Elizabeth sat at the fitting-out dock at the shipyard in her Cunard colours until 2 November 1939, when the Ministry of Shipping issued special licences to declare her seaworthy.

One major factor that limited the ship's departure date was that there were only two spring tides that year high enough for Queen Elizabeth to leave the Clydebank shipyard,[16] known also by German intelligence.

[16] The names of Brown's shipyard employees were booked to local hotels in Southampton, and Captain John Townley, who had previously commanded Aquitania on one voyage and several of Cunard's smaller vessels, was appointed as her first master.

By the beginning of March 1940, Queen Elizabeth was ready to move; the ship had been fuelled, and adjustments to her compass were made, along with some final testing of equipment.

The Cunard colours were painted over with battleship grey, and on the morning of 3 March, the ship quietly left her moorings in the Clyde and proceeded out of the river, where she was met by a King's Messenger,[16] who presented sealed orders directly to the captain.

They were to take the ship directly to New York, in the neutral United States, not to stop or even slow to drop off the Southampton harbour pilot who had embarked on at Clydebank, and to maintain strict radio silence.

[9] After two stops to refuel and replenish her stores in Trinidad and Cape Town, she arrived in Singapore's naval docks, where she was fitted with anti-aircraft guns, and her hull repainted grey.

Bisset was under strict instructions from Sir Percy Bates, who was also aboard the trials, that all that was required from the ship was two measured runs of no more than 30 knots and that she was not permitted to attempt to attain a higher speed record than Queen Mary.

[9] In 1955, during an annual overhaul at Southampton, England, Queen Elizabeth was fitted with underwater fin stabilisers to smooth the ride in rough seas.

For a short time the Queen Elizabeth, then under the command of Commodore Geoffrey Trippleton Marr, attempted a dual role of alternating her usual transatlantic route with cruising between New York and Nassau.

[9] For this new tropical excursion the ship received a major refit in 1965, with a new Lido deck added to her aft section, enhanced air conditioning, and an outdoor swimming pool.

The new company intended to operate the ship as a hotel and tourist attraction in Port Everglades, Florida, similar to the planned use of Queen Mary in Long Beach, California.

There was some talk of permanently flooding the bilge and allowing Queen Elizabeth to rest on the bed of the Intracoastal Waterway in Ft. Lauderdale harbour (Port Everglades) and remain open, but the ship was forced to close in August 1970, after losing money and being declared a fire hazard.

[9] Tung, the head of the Orient Overseas Line, intended to convert the vessel into a university for the World Campus Afloat program (later reformed and renamed as Semester at Sea).

An unplanned lengthy mid-voyage stopover allowed the new owners to fly spare parts out to the ship and carry out repairs before resuming course, arriving in Hong Kong Harbour in July 1971.

Portions of the hull that were not salvaged, as well as the keel, boilers and engines, remained at the bottom of the harbour, and the area was marked as "Foul" on local sea charts, warning ships not to try to anchor there.

The charred remnants of her last ensign were cut from the flagpole and framed in 1972, and still adorn the wall of the officers' mess of marine police HQ in Hong Kong.

[38] Following the demise of Queen Elizabeth, the largest passenger ship in active service became the 66,343 GRT SS France, which was longer but with less tonnage than the Cunard liner.

[citation needed] In 1959, the ship made an appearance in the British satirical comedy film The Mouse That Roared, starring Peter Sellers and Jean Seberg.

While a troupe of invading men from "Grand Fenwick", a fictional European micro-nation, cross the Atlantic to 'war' with the United States, they meet and pass the far larger Queen Elizabeth, and learn that the port of New York is closed due to an air raid drill.