The Canadian Pacific ship Empress of Asia - Date/Photographer unknown.

9 December 2011

The Empress of Asia Was a Real Trooper Through War and Peace

In the Second World War she steamed 46,993 miles for her country, carrying troops, prisoners of war, civilian refugees, and vital cargo.
 
It could be argued that they were a class unto their own. Massive and gleaming white, with two and three towering chrome yellow funnels, the Canadian Pacific Railway's Empresses were nothing less than majestic. Fast and luxurious, they set a standard for trans-Pacific travel and freight for 60 years until the Second World War changed ocean travel forever.
 
For a first-line passenger liner, Empress of Asia's was a warrior's start and finish to an illustrious 29-year-long career. It began on her maiden voyage in late 1914 when the 16,908 ton steamship was met in Hong Kong with the news that the First World War had erupted. Her fresh, sparkling white hull and yellow upper-works would wear the zebra-striped camouflage of an armed merchant cruiser until happier days.
 
After service in Asian waters she was returned to the CPR in 1916 for another two years when, again, the British Admiralty called upon her, this time as a troopship. She completed several voyages in this capacity until, finally, she was able to assume the peacetime role for which she'd been built.
 
Hundreds of trans-Pacific crossings were made in the following 20 years, during which period she was a frequent visitor to B.C. waters as Vancouver was her regular Canadian port of call. Nor were these uneventful years. In 1926 she collided with and sank the freighter Tung Shing off Shanghai. Fourteen years later, in September 1940, 15 months before the Japanese entered the Second World War by attacking Pearl Harbour, she was the star of an international incident when she was "accidentally" bombed by Japanese aircraft while approaching the Gulf of Tokyo and Yokohama.
 
"Two Japanese naval aircraft came and circled the ship," Capt. George Goold recalled in 1965, "and must have recognized her as the Empresses were well known in those waters. The Japs then climbed to a very high altitude, so high that it was almost impossible to see them with the naked eye."
 
Then, as Asia's crew watched in shocked disbelief, the aircraft dropped three bombs, "the first two straddling so near they splashed water aboard but did no damage. The third was a direct hit amidships. It penetrated through the deck and burst in the first class galley, injuring two of the Chinese cooks and destroying the grill."
 
Goold immediately radioed Yokosuki Naval Base that he was under air attack in Japanese waters. Upon his arrival in Yokohama two hours later, "all the top brass from the naval yard were on the pier to meet me, as well as the British Consul."
 
The latter, much to Goold's regret, insisted that he accept the official apologies "graciously." He reluctantly pretended that the explanation that he'd been mistaken for a target ship in the vicinity was perfectly plausible.
 
The naval base effected temporary repairs and compensated the injured cooks. When Asia docked in Vancouver, the Japanese Consul paid the expenses of her complete refitting and the Japanese Admiralty officially apologized to Canada for the incident.
 
This wasn't the liner's first encounter with an increasingly hostile Japanese military. Previously, she'd participated in the evacuation of British women and children from Hong Kong whose European residents were anxious because of its proximity to Canton, which was then under siege.
 
Not all of the intended evacuees shared his pessimism or their compatriots' concern, however, as Asia's crew had had to forcibly restrain some women from leaving the ship before she could sail.
 
Capt. Goold:  "Feeling in Japanese ports was not pleasant, and I always expected to finish the war in a Japanese internment camp."
 
As it happened, in charge of debarkation at Manila was American Gen. Douglas MacArthur who'd earn undying fame in the Philippines. Goold had "the pleasure of being introduced to him by the British Consul".
 
Empress of Asia's arrival in Vancouver after being bombed was her last "peaceful" voyage to the Orient.
 
Like her sisters, she was to serve as a troopship in the European war. Ironically, for her, the future held a grim fate. She'd return to the continent for which she'd been christened and be sent to the bottom by more Japanese bombs. This time, without pretence that it was anything but intentional.
 
Sailing to Liverpool, which completed her 307th crossing, the former luxury liner was converted for a role she'd played 22 years earlier. This war, however, for the Empress of Asia, would be violent and short.
 
Clearing Britain in April 1941, she reached Suez late in June, where one of her visitors was a young RN midshipman. Then known as Philip of Greece, today's Duke of Edinburgh dined with Chief Officer Donald Smith. When Princess Elizabeth and the Duke visited Vancouver many years later, they attended a reunion of several RCN officers, during which Capt. Smith was also present and he and HRH Prince Philip chatted about "old times."
 
12 Nov 1941, she steamed from Liverpool on what would be her last voyage. With her was Empress of Japan (re-christened Empress of Scotland after Japan entered the world conflict only a month later). At Bombay, they joined a speedier convoy and steamed to the support of beleaguered Singapore with troops and supplies. Japanese bombers found Asia as she picked up her pilot off Shulton Shoal.
 
Diving to the attack, they set the aging liner afire, smashing two lifeboats and blistering the lower bridge deck.
 
Fortunately, the damage was less than that inflicted by the so called accidental attack of 1940.
 
But, next day, 5 Feb 1942, Empress of Asia met her end. She'd been assigned "tail-end Charley" of the convoy because of her speed which had been slowed by age, weariness and what was said to be a recalcitrant engine room crew who were unable or unwilling to work to achieve the 18 knots of which their ship was yet capable. When 21 Japanese bombers streaked in to attack, she didn't have a chance.
 
According to Capt. J.B. Smith (not to be confused with Chief Officer Donald Smith), who earned an OBE for his gallantry that day, a "large formation of Japanese aircraft passed overhead and disappeared in the clouds. About 15 minutes later they reappeared, seemingly coming from all directions and flying at both high and low altitudes. All ships of the convoy and the escorting light cruiser and a sloop opened fire at once on the invaders. Bombs started falling all 'round the Empress of Asia, and it was evident the ship had been singled out to bear the brunt of the attack."
 
The one-sided struggle was witnessed by a Scottish seaman aboard another ship. Upon a visit to Vancouver, Asia's onetime port of call, he said:  "The Asia was the slowest in the convoy. They got it first. The dive-bombers laid one on her and slowed her down still more. Then they dropped still more on her and she was aflame from end to end in a few minutes."
 
The first bombs struck near Asia's forward funnel, ripping into the lounge and exploding with devastating effect.
 
Her DEMS gun crews did what they could, remaining at their posts until the end and firing salvo after salvo at the swarming attackers. Even the troops fired their machine guns at the mast-high dive bombers, and it's believed that Asia's return fire accounted for "at least two" enemy aircraft.
 
But more bombs found their mark, collapsing bulkheads, crippling power, and setting the ship ablaze. Water pressure which operated the vital hydrants and fire hoses was cut. Within 40 minutes the chief engineer had to report to the captain that the fires were out of control.
 
All radio contact had been lost when a bomb destroyed the radio shack. However, the fact that she was part of a convoy and her plight known to her companions softened this blow. When the engineers were forced from their stations, Capt. Smith knew the end had come and ordered, Abandon Ship.
 
"At this time," he reported, "we were approaching Ajax Shoal Buoy and passing between the minefields to the north and south of the channel. I decided to swing the ship 'round and anchor close to Shulton Shoal lighthouse... By this time the lower bridge, chartroom, and the officers' accommodations were ablaze and it was impossible to remain on the bridge any longer on account of the smoke and the heat."
 
Because all ladders and passageways were blocked by debris, smoke, and fire, Smith and officers had to slide to the deck by ropes. By then, despite the continuing attack, explosions and the intensity of the flames, most of Asia's undamaged lifeboats had been launched and small craft from the escorting sloop HMAS Yarra and HMS Danae began picking up the battered survivors.
 
As Asia's bow and stern were not afire, her hundreds of soldiers and crewmen hurried to the temporary refuge offered by these extremities where many jumped overboard or dropped lines and ladders. Most were soon picked up by boats of the other ships and several were landed at the lighthouse so that the rescue craft could make more trips.
 
Fortunately, the air raid ceased about then, enabling rescuers to save many more. The little Australian sloop Yarra later was credited with having rescued more than 1,000 of Asia's people. Two hours after the fatal attack began, the last man was evacuated from Asia's blazing hull. The Empress, known for most of her career by her glistening white livery, floated at anchor near the lighthouse, gutted, blackened, and dead. Her second war was her last.
 
Aboard HMIS Sutlej, Capt. Smith made a wide sweep around his former command "to make sure that no one had got into the water and been overlooked." That night, all her survivors were safely ashore where local army officials cared for the troops and the crewmen were attended to by Canadian Pacific agents.
 
It was then arranged that one quarter of the seamen be evacuated aboard to departing transports, the remainder billeted in an army camp. Authorities had determined that, of Asia's 2,700 troops and crewmen, only 15 soldiers were missing and one seaman, Douglas Elsworthy, killed. Elsworthy was interred in a local cemetery. On the day of his funeral, the Japanese made their first landing on formidable Singapore Island. Most of Asia's catering department who'd volunteered to serve in hospitals were interned when the island surrendered and another member of her crew, H. Smallwood, died as a prisoner of war.
 
T.W. Paterson.