this work for over six years. Returning from the next voyage, Mauretania called at Southampton, Le Havre and finally London where she berthed in the King George V Dock. From August she was switched to the London- New York service for which she was intended. Here she supplemented and on the London to New York service. On 11 August 1939 she left on her final prewar voyage to New York. She began her return voyage on September 30, and on October 2 the German english-language radio broadcast from Hamburg issued a veiled threat against her. On her return she was requisitioned by the government. Mauretania was armed with two guns and some smaller weapons, painted in battle grey, and then despatched to America at the end of December 1939. For three months the ship lay idle in New York, docked alongside , , and the French Line's , until it was decided to use her as a troopship. On 20 March 1940 she sailed from New York to Sydney, via Panama, to be converted for her new role. This conversion work was carried out in April and in May she left Sydney as part of one of the greatest convoys ever mustered for the transport of troops. With her were Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and Aquitania, with 2,000 troops, bound for the River Clyde via South Africa. Other notable liners in this great convoy were , , , and . During the early stages of the war the ship transported Australian troops to Suez, India and Singapore but later she mainly served in the North Atlantic. In addition she shuttled Italian prisoners of war from the Middle East to South Africa, for internment, after their defeat in North Africa. Like Aquitania, she amassed over during the course of her war duties, first crossing of the Indian Ocean, then working the Atlantic with American and Canadian troops and finally serving in the Pacific. One of her wartime voyages, of , took her right around the world, taking 82 days to complete. During this epic voyage she established a speed record for the crossing time from Fremantle, Australia to Durban, South Africa. The distance was covered in 8 days and 19 hours at an average speed of . Another wartime troop transport voyage began in New York on 10 May 1943 and ended in Bombay on 24 June 1943, with calls en-route