60 YEARS AFTER BUILD BEGAN, A BOOK ON QE2'S HEROIC WAR ROLE

Cunard's Queen Elizabeth 2 offered the ultimate in fine dining on the ocean wave, its well-heeled passengers enjoying the strains of an orchestra playing under the light of chandeliers.

- BY SIOBHAN McNALLY

But on one historic voyage, instead of suckling pig on bone china plates, those on board lined up to collect "stodge" dished out on canteen trays.

Rather than well-heeled, they were heavy-booted - the decks and corridors echoing with their feet clumping on the hardboard laid to protect the ship's miles of deep-pile carpets.

And instead of portholes lit by chandeliers, its windows were dark.

The silverware, the paintings and the casino tables had all gone ashore to make space for 3,000 troops from 5 Infantry Brigade with battalions from The Scots Guards, Welsh Guards and Gurkha Rifles to launch an assault on Port Stanley in the South Atlantic, some 8,000 miles away.

It was QE2's finest hour. Among those on board was 20-year-old Welsh Guardsman Simon Weston, who went on to survive severe burns to his face and hands after his ship, RFA Sir Galahad, was attacked.

Now, 60 years after they began to build the world's greatest ever liner, a new book about her crucial role in the 1982 Falklands War has been published, marking the 43rd anniversary of her sailing from Southampton.

The QE2 in the Falklands War: Troopship to the South Atlantic was written by Commodore Ronald Warwick and Professor David Humphreys, who were both part of the ship's crew who volunteered to stay on for the historic voyage.

Ronald, now 85, served as chief officer while David, then 25, was a senior accounts petty officer.

Neither had expected QE2 to be requisitioned when Margaret Thatcher's government dispatched a naval task force within 72 hours of Argentina invading the Falkland Islands on April 2.

David, 62, of Canterbury, Kent, explains: "There were 45 merchant ships requisitioned to assist the Royal Navy, including the P&O liner Canberra.

"Word went round that QE2 was just too big and too famous to go down, so we sailed to Philadelphia.