A 34-ton propeller from the SS United States at the entrance to The Mariners’ Museum and Park in Newport News is a reminder of the golden age of ocean liners. Equipped with powerful steam-driven turbines, the SS United States was the fastest ocean liner ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean. “America’s Flagship” was built at Newport News Shipbuilding and delivered in 1952 as a secret Cold War military transport ship ready to carry 15,000 soldiers across the Atlantic Ocean if then Soviet Union forces invaded Western Europe.