RMS Empress of Australia
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| RMS Empress of Australia | |
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| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Owner: | Canadian Pacific Railway Company |
| Ordered: | 1910 |
| Builder: | Stettiner Vulcan AG |
| Launched: | December 20, 1913 |
| Maiden voyage: | 1922 |
| Fate: | Scrapped |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 21,861 gross tons |
| Length: | 187.45 m (615 ft) |
| Beam: | 12.8 m (42 ft) |
| Propulsion: | 6 DE and 6 SE boilers Two sets of steam turbines, turning twin screws |
| Speed: | 19 knots (35 km/h) |
| Complement: | 400 First Class, 150 Tourist Class, 635 Third Class 520 officers & crew |
RMS Empress of Australia was a passenger liner that was ceded to Great Britain under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and later sold to the Canadian Pacific Railway company.
The ship was originally built for the Hamburg America Line by Vulcan AG shipyard, Stettin (now Szcecin, Poland), in 1912, as yard number 333. The hull was launched on December 20, 1913, and named SS Admiral Von Tirpitz, then later the SS Tirpitz, but fitting out was held up during World War I.
In 1916, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered her to be completed as his royal yacht, in which he intended to receive the allied navel fleets when they surrendered. Her first trip, however, was to sail from Hamburg to Hull on December 1, 1919. She was then used as a troop ship under P & O Line management.
In 1921 she was sold to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, who then renamed her Empress of China, and began modifications, including conversion to oil firing instead of coal. She was refitted by John Brown & Company, Clydebank, and renamed again to RMS Empress of Australia in August of the same year. By 1922 she sailed from Greenock to the Pacific via Panama. After 20 voyages across the Pacific, Canadian Pacific were forced to deal with her poor performance and chose to re-engine and re-boiler the ship. She sailed to Govan Fairfield at Glasgow, arriving September 9, 1926. The vastly complex work was made more difficult by her divided uptakes, offering no central space to remove machinery. Old boilers were sliced up and removed in pieces, the whole job lasting many months and cost over half a million pounds.
When completed she was virtually a new ship, now driven by Parsons turbines with six double-ended boilers. On trials the ship made 20.34 knots and required 50 tons a day less oil. Three classes of passenger accommodations were incorporated in the final layout; in total, 1,500 passengers could be carried in luxurious interior appointments, the ship having been fitted out to a very high specification. The dinning room was in the French Regency style. There was a spacious Lounge designed in the Empire style, which included a dance floor. The writing room was fitted in the style of Louis XVI, with tinted walls and mahogany furniture, as was the smoke room which had oak panelled walls. There was also a swimming pool and fully equipped gymnasium.
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[edit] From near disaster to great distinction
On Saturday, September 1, 1923, at 11:55 am, the Empress of Australia was making ready to depart from the docks at Yokohama, Japan. Several hundred people were on the docks, catching streamers and confetti from the passengers lining the rails, and waving their farewells. Tugs were about to ease the ship away from the dock when, without warning the 23,000 ton liner was flung violently from side to side. The earth trembled under several violent shocks and sections of the dock collapsed under the feet of the panic stricken crowds. The land and remaining dock structure began to roll in wave like motions as high as six to eight feet. In minutes the worst shocks were over, but after-shocks, some quite heavy, continued for some time, while winds rose to 70 mph. From the city a heavy rumbling sound could be heard as hundreds of buildings collapsed into rubble. This was the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake of Yokohama, one of the worst in recorded history.
The Empress of Australia was in a very dangerous position. Crowded with passengers, she was still alongside the remains of the dock, with a freighter moored close behind so she could not clear without the aid of tugs. Meantime, the Lyons Maru, moored to the east, had lost her cable and drifted across the harbour, colliding with the Australia at her stern. She then hit amidships, shattering a lighter loaded with lumber that had drifted alongside. This small vessel acted as a buffer between the two large ships and prevented serious damage. Tugs had disappeared in the confusion and fires were started on the docks and were spreading rapidly. Available crew and passengers were put to work hosing down the ship to put out sparks and embers that were falling on the decks. Ropes and ladders were lowered over the side so that people trapped on the dock could climb aboard. Captain Robinson then tried to push the freighter moored astern with his ship, to allow enough room to manoeuvre away from the flaming docks. The Australia was able to carefully move the freighter, the Steel Navigator, enough to pull away.
When she went forward, her port propeller fouled in the anchor cable of the freighter. Fortunately the liner was now about 60 feet away from the flames, and the winds had shifted, blowing the fires away from the ship. By 3pm the fires had died down and the wind dropped off to a light breeze; the ship was immobile but safe for the moment. In the distance vast fires could be seen in the city. The ship's lifeboats were lowered and manned by members of the crew and passenger volunteers, who formed rescue parties to help those ashore, working through the night.
The next morning, the ship was again in danger from a large mass of burning oil that was moving across the harbour. The Empress of Australia could not steer because of the damaged propeller, but was able to avoid the oil fire long enough to get assistance from the tanker Iris. Her captain agreed to tow the bow of the Australia around, and she was then able to move out to sea and a safer anchorage. When taking a count on Sunday, there were over 2000 refugees on board. On Monday, the RMS Empress of Canada arrived on her regular schedule and was able to provide the Australia with more stores, and to take most of the refugees on to Kobe, on the island of Honshū, where the Japanese government had set up a relief centre. On Tuesday, the Imperial Japanese Navy's second Fusō-class battleship Yamashiro arrived at the harbour. The Empress of Australia had been unable to proceed due to the fact that she had a fouled propeller. Arrangements were made for a diver from the Yamashiro to inspect the damage and effect repairs. The cable was unwound and the machinery was tested. It was found to have suffered no damage.
The ship was now free to leave, but at the request of the British Consul, she remained as long as needed for continued relief work. Each morning, for the next several days, the Empress of Australia re-entered the harbour and sent her boats ashore manned by a combination of crew, local residents, and passenger volunteers. Refugees were brought aboard, transferred from the ship to other vessels, or taken to Kobe. To aid the victims, the ships officers and most of the passengers donated everything they could spare. She finally departed Yokohama Harbour on September 12, 1923, returning to her routine duties, but her services were not forgotten. Captain Robinson received numerous awards in recognition of his actions, including investment with the CBE, and award of the Lloyds Silver Medal. A group of passengers and refugees who were aboard during the disaster commissioned a bronze tablet and presented it to the ship in recognition of the relief efforts. When the Empress of Australia was scrapped in 1952, the bronze tablet was rescued and presented to Captain Robinson, then aged 82, in a special ceremony in Vancouver.
[edit] Atlantic crossing and royal patronage
On September 12, 1923, after the earthquake adventure, the Empress of Australia returned to her routine duties. In August, three years later, the Empress of Australia departed from Hong Kong, after her twenty first and final Pacific voyage. It was decided to place her on Atlantic service and she sailed from Southampton for Quebec City on her first voyage on June 25, 1927, with the Prince of Wales aboard, bound for Diamond Jubilee celebrations in Canada. She was now in service with the Empress of Scotland and the Empress of France.
In 1928 she began to cruise in the off season and to sail on round the world voyages. After the Empress of France was withdrawn from the service, the Empress of Australia and the Empress of Scotland carried on a two ship service with white hulls with dark blue ribbon and green boot topping.
In 1938 she went to Harland & Wolff at Southampton for an overhaul, returning for the 1939 season. After three Atlantic crossings she was chosen to act as Royal Yacht for King George VI and the Queen Elizabeth for their Royal Visit to Canada in 1939, sailing from Portsmouth May 6, 1939 and arriving in Quebec on May 17, 1939, two days late due to dense fog on the Atlantic.
She continued on the Quebec run until the outbreak of World War II, whereupon she became part of the war effort.
[edit] Wartime service
She was sent to Southampton, where she was to be converted into a troopship; painted in grey, fitted with a three-inch gun and with a carrying capacity of 5,000. It was in this role that she would remain for the next 13 years. The Empress of Australia left on her first wartime voyage to Ceylon and Bombay on September 28, 1939. Following this task, the ship then went across the Atlantic to Halifax, from where she joined a large convoy carrying Canadian soldiers to the battlefields of Europe.
During the entire war, the Empress of Australia enjoyed very good luck, and was only seriously damaged once, when she was holed by the Orient Line's 14,982 ton Ormonde during the North Africa campaign in January 1943. Her final wartime voyage was from Hong Kong with ex-prisoners of war and internees.
After World War II the Empress of Australia worked world wide as a troop ship in every theatre of war, including carrying military personnel to Pusan during the Korean War. In 1946 while anchoring off Liverpool her anchor tangled with that of a cargo liner Debrett; the two ships collided and seven tugs were needed to separate them. In December of that year she was re-fitted for peace-time trooping, offering more comfortable accommodations for the troops, however she was never repainted and remained in the wartime grey colour scheme. She continued to carry troops up to another overhaul in Liverpool in 1951. The following year after her 70th trooping voyage she was sold. Bought for scrap, she sailed from the Mersey to Inverkeithing, May 8, 1952.
[edit] Technical
[edit] Power plant and propulsion system
- Engines: Two sets of steam turbines; 20,000 shaft hourse power; By Fairfield Co., Glasgow.
- Boilers: 6 DE and 6 SE boilers, 220 lbs/sq inch steam pressure; 600 degrees of super heated Steam. Oil fuel, forced draught to furnaces.
