Despite Appearances ... She Is The Biggest Queen In Long Beach

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Ten cars dominate

the foreground of this image.

 

WHAT IF

each of these vehicles transported

sixteen hundred passengers

???

not six in each car

not sixteen in each car
but
sixteen hundred
in each car  

You would have to stretch

your imagination beyond infinity

to envision this possibility.

***

Pretend you could see this happening

in July, 2018.

 ***

The total human population

of this hallucination would,

however, be less than

the actual number of passengers

transported together 

across the Atlantic Ocean by

 the dwarfed ship in the background

of this image.

***

Actually that happened 

in July, 1943   

***
 

World War II was in peak form

at that time and the Queen Mary

had been put into service.

Denuded of its status

as a luxury cruise ship,

the Queen Mary was neutered

with a fresh coat of drab grey paint

and transported soldiers into battle.

In the course of the war,

hundreds of thousands

of soldiers were ferried

across the Atlantic

on the numerous

military missions

of the Queen Mary.

In July, 1943

a record was set

when a total of 16,683 people

sailed across the ocean

on the QM

There is nothing hallucinatory

or photoshoppy about the image below

from seventy-four years ago.

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