France:
Ocean liner SS Normandie, one of the largest and fastest in the late 30s, caught fire and capsized in its New York pier in Feb 1942 while undergoing conversion into the troop transport USS Lafayette.
In one of the largest and most expensive salvage operations of its kind, estimated at $5 million dollars at the time, the ship was stripped of superstructure and righted on 7 August 1943. She was renamed Lafayette and reclassified as an aircraft and transport ferry, APV-4, on 15 September 1943 and placed in drydock the following month. Extensive damage to her hull, however, deterioration of her machinery, and the necessity for employing manpower on other more critical war projects prevented resumption of the conversion program, with the cost of restoring her determined to be too great, and her hulk remained in the Navy's custody through the cessation of hostilities with the Axis powers.
Lafayette was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 11 October 1945 without having ever sailed under the US flag. President Harry Truman authorised her disposal in an Executive Order on 8 September 1946, and she was sold as scrap on 3 October 1946 to Lipsett, Inc., an American salvage company based in New York City, for US$161,680 (approx. $1,997,000 in 2017 value). After neither the U.S. Navy nor French Line offered a plan to salvage her, Yourkevitch, the ship's original designer, proposed to cut the ship down and restore her as a mid-sized liner. This plan also failed to draw backing. She was cut up for scrap beginning in October 1946[8] at Port Newark, New Jersey, and completely scrapped by 31 December 1948.
