Travel..

 Anne Traveled - Galway to NYC 

Anne Hughes traveled to Bermuda 1939

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While not as large or famous as other liners of her time, Monarch of Bermuda was one of the most luxurious: she was a first-class only ship, with luxury accommodation for 830 passengers in first class, although cabins for thirty-two second class passengers were also available. Nearly all her cabins were outer cabins and had private facilities, neither of which was a given at the time. In fact, when Furness Withy chartered the Cunard-White Star's Georgic and Lancastria in the late 1930s to help cope with the increased influx of passengers on the New York-Bermuda line, the clientele soon noticed the difference in luxury between them and Monarch/Queen and reacted by largely deserting the new ships, resulting in Lancastria's contract being terminated and her being returned to Cunard White Star earlier than scheduled.

On 8 September 1934 Monarch of Bermuda earned her fifteen minutes of fame when she rescued 65 survivors of the ill-fated Morro Castle. In 1939 she was laid up in New York after the outbreak of the Second World War, and shortly afterwards she was requisitioned by the Royal Navy as a troopship, with a capacity of 1,400 troops; during the course of the war she was repeatedly modified to increase her troop capacity, which rose to up to 5,500 soldiers. In 1940 she participated in the Norwegian campaign and carried the gold reserves of the Bank of England and part of the Polish national treasures to Canada; in 1942 she participated in the invasion of Madagascar and in Operation Torch; in 1943 she took part in the invasion of Sicily. In 1946 she carried Canadian "war brides" (European women who had married Canadian soldiers fighting in Europe during the war) to Canada and was then released from troopship service after carrying 164,840 troops over six years.

Alas, she was never to return to luxury service on the Bermuda line, for on 24 May 1947, while undergoing conversion back to passenger ship in the Palmer shipyard of Hebburn, she was gutted by a fire.