It was in the afternoon, and the giant liner Queen Mary was cutting through the North Atlantic at top speed off the coast of Ireland. Aboard were 15,000 American troops bound for Scotland.

Suddenly the 84,000-ton vessel heeled to starboard and there was a shudder, as if it had struck something, Jeff Domaskin of Clarkston, one of the airmen aboard, recalled yesterday.

Domaskin and other passengers climbed up to the open deck to see what had happened. They arrived just in time to see the stern half of a vessel going down and two or three men jumping into the sea.

The Queen Mary, maneuvering to avoid a German submarine, had slammed broadside into the British cruiser HMS Curacao, sinking it with the loss of 338 men.

The accident occurred 20 years ago today — on Oct. 1, 1942— but was not made public until after the end of World War II.

This story was published in the Oct. 1, 1962, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.