RMS Empress of Asia
 The Empress of Asia in Vancouver (1917)
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The RMS Empress of Asia was an ocean liner of the Canadian Pacific Line put into service in 1913 , which transported passengers , mail and cargo on the route across the Pacific between the Canadian west coast and East Asia . The ship served as an auxiliary cruiser in World War I , was used again as a passenger ship between the wars and was sunk during service as a troop transport in 1942 during World War II .
The ship
The 16,909 gross registered tons (GRT) steamship Empress of Asia was built in 1912/13 at the Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company in Govan near Glasgow and was launched there on November 23, 1912. The 173.80 meter long and 20.79 meter wide ship had three chimneys and two masts . It had four propellers and drove at an average cruising speed of 19 knots. She could take a total of 1180 passengers on board. The ship had four decks that stretched the entire length of the ship. The luxuriously equipped and richly furnished rooms of the first class included the dining room, a library, a writing room, a lounge, a smoking room, a veranda café and a well-equipped fitness room.
The Empress of Asia was classified in the highest possible category, 100 A-1, by the ship classification company Lloyd's Register of Shipping . After her sister ship, she was only the second passenger liner to have a straight stern , which was more common for warships. This design proved to be very beneficial in terms of control, speed and vibration. The Empress of Asia had an identical sister ship , the Empress of Russia , which was also built by Fairfield Shipbuilders and was launched a few months before it. These two ships were among the last newbuildings before the outbreak of World War I and replaced the Empress of Ireland and the Empress of Britain as flagships of the CP fleet.
history
On June 14, 1913, the Empress of Asia ran in Liverpool on its maiden voyage to Cape Town and Hong Kong , then operated on the Pacific route between Vancouver , Hong Kong and Nagasaki . In May 1914, the Empress of Asia set a new speed record on the Pacific route when, under the command of Captain Samuel Robinson, she covered 473 nautical miles in just one day and completed the entire crossing in nine days, two hours and 15 minutes. In doing so, she took the rank of fastest ship on the Pacific Ocean from her sister ship .
After little more than a year in civilian trade was Empress of Asia in Ausugt 1914 by the British Admiralty as an armed merchant cruiser requested (Armed Merchant Cruiser). In November 1914 she was one of the ships that were supposed to chase the small cruiser SMS Emden of the Imperial Navy in the Indian Ocean , which ran aground off the Cocos Islands after a battle with the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney . She brought part of the Emden crew to Colombo .
In March 1916, however, she was used again in service with the Canadian Pacific Line on the Pacific route. In May 1918 she drove from Vancouver via Panama to New York , from where she made six Atlantic crossings as a troop transport until the end of the war . In January 1919, she left Liverpool for Hong Kong and then resumed passenger and mail services in the Pacific. Prominent passengers on the Empress of Asia during this time included the British philosopher Bertrand Russell in the summer of 1921 and the Danish physicist Niels Bohr in April 1924.
On January 11, 1926, there was a collision between the Empress of Asia and the Chinese steamer Tung Shing in Shanghai , which then sank. During the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the Empress of Asia and the Empress of Canada evacuated civilians from Shanghai. On January 1, 1941, the Empress of Asia was requisitioned as a troop transport in Vancouver after 307 Pacific crossings. Their first assignment was to bring the Green Howards infantry regiment from Suez to the Cape of Good Hope so they could take part in the Africa campaign . In September 1941, the Empress of Asia was part of the first convoy to leave the United States for England.
On February 5, 1942, she was bombed by nine Japanese dive fighters with 2200 men on board off Singapore . The ship was evacuated and stranded west of Keppel Harbor, where the wreck burned out. HMAS Wollongong , HMIS Sutlej and HMS Danae took part in the rescue operation . The survivors were taken on board by the HMAS Yarra under the command of Commander Wilfred Harrington. There were 16 fatalities.