RMS Empress of Canada (ship, 1922)
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The RMS Empress of Canada (I) was an ocean liner put into service in 1922 by the Canadian shipping company Canadian Pacific Steamship Company , which was used in the transpacific passenger and mail traffic between the west coast of Canada and the Far East . From 1939 the Empress of Canada served as an Allied troop transport in World War II until it was sunk on March 13, 1943 in the South Atlantic by the Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci .
The ship
The motor ship Empress of Canada was ordered by Canadian Pacific in 1920 from the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan near Glasgow and was launched there on August 17, 1920. The 20,157 GRT passenger and cargo ship was 191.11 meters long, 23.71 meters wide and had a maximum draft of 12.7 meters. It was powered by six steam turbines that acted on two propellers and made 26,000 shaft horsepower (WPS). The top speed was 18 knots, which increased to 21 knots in 1928 after a machine change.
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The Empress of Canada could carry 488 first class passengers, 106 second class and 926 third class. The ship was originally built for passenger and mail traffic to Japan, Hong Kong and China. On May 5, 1922, she ran from Falmouth on her maiden voyage to Suez and Hong Kong . After that she was used on the transpacific route.
On September 4, 1923, the Empress of Canada arrived in Tokyo . The great Kanto earthquake had struck three days earlier on the main Japanese island of Honshū , in which thousands of people were killed. In Tokyo, the British consul had already set up his headquarters on board the Canadian Pacific steamer Empress of Australia . The Empress of Canada was sent to Kobe with refugees , including 587 Europeans, 31 Japanese and 362 Chinese.
On January 30, 1924, she left New York for the first circumnavigation of the world, which was carried out by Canadian Pacific. In September 1929 the Empress of Canada made a crossing from Southampton to Québec and then returned to Vancouver via the Panama Canal .
Troop transport
After 200 trips on the Pacific route, the Empress of Canada was drafted into service as a troop transport in November 1939 . She mainly carried units of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) from New Zealand and Australia to Europe. In August 1941 she took part in Operation Gauntlet, the Allied evacuation of Svalbard after the attack on the archipelago by the Soviet Union .
On March 13, 1943, the Empress of Canada was sunk by the Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci about 400 nautical miles south of Cape Palmas off the coast of West Africa . The ship was under the command of Captain George Goold on a voyage from Durban in South Africa to Takoradi ( Ghana ). 1346 people were on board, including 499 Italian prisoners of war as well as Polish and Greek refugees. After the first torpedo hit, which occurred shortly after midnight, the submarine commander Gianfranco Gazzana Priaroggia gave Captain Goold half an hour to evacuate his ship. However, the ship sank quickly and the many different languages hindered the rescue operation. 392 people were killed in the sinking, including 90 women and 44 crew members. Almost half of the fatalities were Italian prisoners of war. The survivors drifted in the open ocean for two days, exposed to waves, exhaustion, and attacks from sharks and barracudas .
The destroyer Boreas and the corvettes Petunia and Crocus arrived on site on March 15 and took in the survivors. On the morning of March 16, the Corinthian of the Ellerman Lines , which had saved the survivors of the Duchess of Atholl the year before , was added. The survivors were brought ashore in Durban, from where most were brought to Liverpool .
The Empress of Canada was the largest of the 17 Allied ships sunk by Leonardo da Vinci .