page_title: RMS Empress of Canada (1920)
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: RMS Empress of Canada (1920) / History / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: AWM caption: January 20, 1940 -- At sea off Freemantle, Western Australia. SS "Empress of Canada" troop transport.
context_page_description: RMS Empress of Canada was an ocean liner built in 1920 for the Canadian Pacific Steamships by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland. This ship—the first of two CP vessels to be named Empress of Canada—regularly traversed the trans-Pacific route between the west coast of Canada and the Far East until 1939.
context_section_description: Following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, she was converted for use as a troopship. She was one of the ships in the first Australian/New Zealand convoy, designated US.1 for secrecy, destined for North Africa and at that time not yet fully converted for full troop capacity with few ships of the convoy carrying more than 25% more than their normal passenger load. Empress of Canada departed Wellington 6 January 1940 with the New Zealand elements, joined the Australian ships and arrived in Aden on 8 February from where the convoy split with all ships heading for Suez.
  She continued to transport ANZAC troops from New Zealand and from Australia to the war zones in Europe until sunk. The return voyage from Europe was not less dangerous than the trip north had been.  On 13 March 1943, while en route from Durban, South Africa to Takoradi carrying Italian prisoners of war along with Polish and Greek refugees, the SS Empress of Canada was torpedoed at midnight and sunk by the  Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci approximately 400 miles (640 km) south of Cape Palmas off the coast of Africa. Of the approximate 1800 people on board, 392 died. Nearly half of the fatalities reported were Italian prisoners. British rescuers saved 800 of those aboard.
caption: SS Empress of Canada's ballroom was cleared for sleeping as ANZAC troops are transported from the Antipodes to the war zones in the Northern Hemisphere. This image was captured at sea in January 1940 near Fremantle, Western Australia.
exif: {}