You may have heard about the pending destruction of the once great SS United States.  I prefer to remember this ship not as a rusting relic but as the great Ocean Liner she once was… and that’s what “SS United States, an Operational Guide to America’s Flagship” is: a look at this record breaking American Ocean Liner in her glory years, as well as reflections on how she is today.

Some History

As a kid big ships always fascinated me – Battleships, Aircraft Carriers, Ocean Liners, it was one of those childhood obsessions that I’d mostly forgotten about –  until as an adult I saw a random video about the new Queen Mary 2, the last Ocean Liner in the world still in operation. 

It triggered a memory that as a child I actually stayed with my family on the original RMS Queen Mary, one of the most famous Ocean Liners in history that was saved from being scrapped and transformed into a hotel in California.

This has led to a somewhat recent obsession of mine with Ocean Liners… the culture around them, their history, like how they helped win World War II and how after the war many of them were household names both in the US and abroad.

While the Queen Mary is probably my favorite ship as I read about Ocean Liners one ship kept coming up – the impressive, but awkwardly named, United States Lines SS United States. 

The SS United States

I knew nothing about this ship beyond how absolutely perfect her design was.

Sadly, most of the pictures, posts, and YouTube videos are about its current state (which is pretty bad).  The fact the ship even HAS a current state is interesting because most ships of this vintage simply don’t exist – they were all scrapped.    While some Ocean Liners have been lovingly (and miraculously) maintained, the SS United States has survived… but just barely.

Today, the ship is structurally sound, but decayed and hollowed out.  Her paint is peeling across the ship and the inside has been thoroughly and tragically gutted, leaving skeletal interiors.  

I wanted to know more about the ship, but almost everything I found was either about the builder of the ship, or the current state and future plans such as using the ship as a hotel and convention center. I’m less interested in her possible future as a hotel – for information on that check out the Conservancy committed to saving her.

Books about the ship are few and far between – despite the ship being the (technical) last winner of the Blue Riband and one of the few surviving Ocean Liners.  

I was skeptical about this book as the price was fairly high and there weren’t that many reviews of it, but I was curious enough to give it a try.  So,  how was it?

Book Review

When the book arrived I was impressed.  It’s a large hardcover with glossy full color pages throughout, tons of color pictures, and what looked like a lot of interesting content. 

The book’s pedigree is interesting as it was a labor of love by the now deceased first author, James Reinfleisch.  He volunteered much of his life to the care and historical preservation of the United States after falling in love with the ship and is personally responsible for saving many of its artifacts, most importantly lots of physical papers that were on board. 

Reinfleisch died before he could complete the book and his work was continued by F. Samuel Bauer and Stanton R. Daywalt, who completed the book and found Schiffer Publishing to publish it.

The end result is a very fascinating and detailed exploration of the SS United States, with a strong focus on the ships construction, outfitting, technical abilities and operations – basically exactly what had been wanting to read.

Many books about the United States tell the story of its creator, William Francis Gibbs. While his story is an interesting one this book barely goes into it at all, which I was fine with. Other books have covered this story already (such as A Man and his Ship – which I suggest as a good read if that’s what you want.)

I really enjoyed this book and it is exactly what I was looking for: a technical manual for the ship that talked about its construction and operation. The only faults I would give are that I wish it had more deck plans, layouts, and cross sections – I can never get enough of those!

Worth It?

I’d suggest picking this up if you’re interested in Ocean Liners and want to get a look at the SS United States that isn’t a biography of its builder. The price is a little high, but I do think it is justified:  I really expected this book to be one of those ‘coffee table books’ you find in big box book stores where a publisher hires a random writer to write a bunch of filler – this was anything but.  This is a well written book that has been put together with love and published with surprisingly high quality.

Where to read…

The publisher sells it directly: Shiffer Publishing

You can also find it on Amazon and other online book stores. As this is a somewhat new book I would encourage you to try to buy it new to support the authors.