This was Cunard's second ship with that name, launched in 1922 at John Brown & Co.,
of Clydebank. She made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York on 23 June
1923 and until 1933 she was generally used on that route in summer and spent
winters cruising from New York to the Caribbean. She was painted white (as shown
here) for a 1933 world cruise, after which she spent a year on the London-Southampton-New
York route before returning to Liverpool in 1935. After another world cruise
in 1938, Franconia was refitted as a troopship.
During the war, she took part in the evacuations of Norway and France and the
invasion of Sicily, and served as the headquarters ship at Yalta. In all, she
carried nearly 150,000 troops and steamed over 300,000 miles in nearly 9 years.
In 1949, Franconia returned to Cunard's service, on the Canada routes from Liverpool
and (in 1955) Southampton. She also resumed her winter cruising.
After a summer of cruises out of New York in 1956, she made her final transatlantic
voyage, Liverpool-New York-Liverpool, in November, and was scrapped at Inverkeithing
by Thos. W. Ward.
Sources: Haws' Merchant Fleets; Bonsor's North Atlantic Seaway.