Passage Across the Sea

The SS Île de France, a French luxury liner turned WWII troopship, carried thousands of servicemen across the Atlantic—including the Hummel crew—before later gaining fame as the doomed vessel in the 1960 film The Last Voyage.

One year of training had led them to this moment. The Hummel crew’s journey to war began in different corners of the country. For some, it started in Chicago on February 23, 1944—the first stop on a long route that would eventually bring them all together. Every takeoff, landing, and long classroom session had been building toward war. They trained together across the country—Miami, Kingman (Arizona), Lincoln (Nebraska), Mountain Home (Idaho), Topeka (Kansas), and finally Boston, Massachusetts.

It was in Boston that they saw her for the first time—the Île de France. Once a glamorous French ocean liner, she had been transformed into a wartime troopship, trading polished wood and fine china for crowded bunks and the scent of saltwater mixed with fuel oil and steam. In her earlier life, she had carried celebrities, diplomats, and tourists across the Atlantic. She even made appearances in films such as Let’s Get Married (1937) and Luxury Liner (1948). Years later, she would be cast in one last role—the 1960 disaster movie The Last Voyage—in which she was dramatically sunk on screen.

On January 8, 1945, the Hummel crew stepped aboard with thousands of other servicemen, their duffel bags stacked high, the decks alive with the sound of conversation and the distant throb of the engines. The crossing was a world away from training flights over American soil—days of gray seas and colder winds, a convoy zig-zagging across the Atlantic to guard against lurking U-boats. The crew slept in shifts, ate in mess lines, and watched the horizon for signs of land.

After days at sea, Scotland appeared through the mist. From there, they traveled south through England to their new home at RAF Wendling. The long road to combat was nearly complete. Soon, their training would be tested in the skies over Europe. But for now, the memory of that crossing—the camaraderie, the uncertainty, and the knowledge that they were leaving one life behind for another—would stay with them forever.