Empress of Britain: Canadian Pacific's Greatest Ship

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

When a Canadian is asked to list some famous ships that have prematurely
parked on the bottom of the ocean, the Titanic, the Lusitania, the
Bismarck, and even the Mary Rose are more likely to come to mind than
the Empress of Britain. This is ironic because the Empress, at 730 feet
long and displacing 40,680 tons, was the largest noncombat ship sunk
during World War II. It was also the pride of the Canadian Pacific line,
and both its creation and demise marked turning points in Canadian
steamship tradition.

Maritime historian Gordon Turner provides a very credible account of
this beautiful and historic ship, backing up careful research with an
extensive photograph collection and reams of fascinating technical data.
The author writes with flair and humor. Yet the end result is a book
that makes it clear that the significance of the Empress went beyond its
Canadian associations.

The ship was built in Scotland and sank near Ireland. Two of its three
captains were British, as was much of its crew. In the nine years it
steamed the Atlantic, few Canadians (other than actress Mary Pickford
and Prime Minister R.B. Bennett) could afford to travel on it. Although
it occasionally docked in Quebec, the Empress was ultimately a ship of
the world.

It is in this light, then, that the book should be judged. Turner’s
ability to reach across 50 years to bring the Empress back from
obscurity is an achievement worthy of the finest ship of its era; in the
parlance of the subject, this book is first class.