R.M.S. Queen Mary was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior in 1993, on the fifty-ninth anniversary of the vessel's 1934 launch from Clydebank, Scotland. It was dedicated to the honor and memory of the Queen Mary and the ship's personnel for safely transporting over 750,000 servicemen and women during World War II, and was also dedicated on Veterans Day 2001 by Amvets - American Veterans of WW II, Korea, Vietnam. The Queen Mary received three bells from Lloyds of London in 1936: the largest, 24 inches in diameter and weighing 350 pounds, made of copper and tin, originally hung above the crow's nest and its F note could be heard a half mile away on a still day; the smallest, tuned to B flat, hung outside the wheel house, measured 10 inches in diameter, weighed 30 pounds, and sounded ship's time, repeated by the other two bells in harmony; the third, 18 inches in diameter and also tuned to B flat, was located on the bow, sounded in heavy fog and when the anchors were in motion, and was lost and later replaced during the ship's career. On October 31, 1967, the Queen Mary left the United Kingdom for the last time, and thirty-nine days and 14,500 nautical miles later arrived off the Southern California coastline on the morning of December 9, 1967, where an estimated 5,000 boats greeted her as millions watched from shore while she steamed toward her new home in Long Beach.
