With plans to convert the French luxury liner into a transport vessel, the U.S. Maritime Commission requisitioned the SS NORMANDIE on December 16, 1941. According to the NY Herald Tribune, “Captain Granville Conway, North Atlantic district director of the Maritime Commission, accompanied by Carl Farbach, of the commission’s legal staff, boarded the vessel at its Forty-eighth Street pier on the Hudson River and posted a notice saying that the government had taken title and would compensate the owners.” On February 8, 1942, a fire broke out on deck that set the entire ship ablaze. The SS Normandie, once the pride of France, rolled over at 2:35 the following morning. Suspicions of German sabotage spread in the press over the months following the incident, prompting a full-blown FBI investigation over whether enemy “internationals” had intentionally destroyed the ship. But the investigation eventually lost steam when the FBI determined the fire started when a stack of burlap bales ignited, most likely from the sparks of a welder’s torch.