Thanks. The largest allied loss during the war was the sinking of Canadian Pacific’s 42,348-ton Empress of Britain in 1940, while she was serving as a troop transport. Chi ha parenti o genitori che erano sulla nave può contattarmi. I would like to know if it came from that ship. Do you have a copy of the account your father wrote? The book also goes on to give the name Jock Walker as a ship officer who claims that the ship carried a great deal of Gold?? 98 likes. I have only just started to learn about what happened as he never spoke of his war experiences, his name was Donald Davies known as Don and was from Shropshire he served three tours of duty on the ship between 1941 and when she was sunk. My mothers brother Edward Robertson was part of the crew when the ship was lost.She always spoke of him as quiet man who was sadley missed by all who knew him. BOREAS returned to Freetown from escorting H.M.S. My Grandmother was on the Empress of Canada when she sank, together with my Godmothers Father, Pamela Luke and Jack Smith, I'm told that Jack went and got Grandma from her cabin or she would have gone down with the ship.Pamela was on her way home from Singapore where she had been stationed as a morse code operator whilst in the Wrens, I don't know much more informaiton as she would never speak of her war years and never collected her medals as she said she'd not done anything in the war.I do know only Pamela, Jack and one other survived in their life boat and that all my Grandmothers jewelery went down with the ship. I often think that it could ONLY be the sea that constitutes a sufficiently fitting memorial for so many lost, so young, including Bombardier Kerr-Taylor. On March 14th 1943, the da Vinci sunk her most notable target, the troopship SS Empress of Canada. P. R. Liner "Empress of Ireland” sunk in collision off Father Point. Her husband died of exhaustion at sea. Empress of Canada (3) 1961: 1972 sold to Carnival Cruise Line, Panama renamed Mardi Gras. I have just spent part of my afternoon talking with my honorary Auntie, now in her nineties, about her father, who was a gunner in the RN. 1951-07-31 Empress of Canada Passenger List. My father was a stoker (Andrew Lee)aboard the ship when it was torpedoed.......he survived after three days at sea........ My mother Suzanne who died in 2007 was also on the Empress of Canada. To then survive the sinking was remarkable. He suffered shark bites which pained him all his life. EMPRESS OF CANADA. Like most of these heroes, he said almost nothing about it during his life, but the family are trying to research what did happen and what ship he may have been rescued by. He said the Boreas picked up 700 Empress of Canada survivors out of the shark infested waters. My Grandfather, William Sams whom perished on this ship and our family have very little information, it has been said that he escaped on a life boat but went back to the sinking ship to help try and release the Italian PoW. Here the convoy split, and Empress of Canada headed for Durban, arriving on 25th February, where most of the troops aboard trans-shipped to smaller vessels. The final casualty toll was 44 crew, 8 guards and 340 passengers, ironically many of them Italian prisoners of war. After 6 days those still alive were picked up by a Royal Navy ship which treated them the best they could, days afterwards they were still picking up survivors, some of whom were partly eated by sharks and had to be shot to put them out of their missery as there was nothing anybody could do for them.My dad said he was one of the lucky ones, although for the rest of his short life he was in constant pain due to the amount of oil and salt water he had swallowed, that together with no food or water for those 6 days had ruined his insides. Empress of Canada (1) 1920: 1939 converted to troopship, 1943 torpedoed and sunk by Italian submarine in South Atlantic; loss of 392 lives. Empress of Canada sunk 13th March 2017 Les Late on 13th March 1943, Canadian Pacific’s Empress of Canada was hit on the starboard side by a torpedo from the Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci, and quickly developed a list and lost all power. I started a page on facebook to post them and the stories. Following the Armistice in 1945, the shipping lines could start looking into the task of rebuilding their fleets. He was also at Dieppe, Suez canal and Anzio, but the worst was being sunk on the Empress of Canada. She had survived being transported fromher native Poland to Siberia, repatriated to Iran and then South Africa. He was frustrated by censorship at the time and not allowed to write about it, but in the l960s he wrote an account in the Philadelphia Bulletin, paying tribute to a young doctor who swam through the sharks, tending the injured until he, too, was eaten. It is Canada’s worst maritime disaster, yet few Canadians have heard of it. Hello Anonymous and Mrs. Owens, thank you both very much for your kind visits.Anonymous, it is wonderful news to hear that your father survived not one, but two sinkings! My father Michael Victor James Dunford also served on the Empress of Canada...he survived the sinking and told stories of shark and barracuda attacks. My mother, Zofia Reder, and her mother survived the sinking of the Empress of Canada. An SOS had been transmitted and a Catalina flying boat found the lifeboats the next day. A corvette took them to Freetown on the West African Coast. Pacific Marine Review. They were scared that the sub would shoot them but that didn't happen.He arrived back in Liverpool wearing just his shorts and a singletDad was also torpedoed on HMS Salopian in 1941 and again attacked off Norwegian coast by a German pocket battle ship.Ironically, he joined the Merchant Navy to avoid the army as he thought the army was too dangerous!I haven't got his Merchant Navy Discharge book and don't know the name of the 3rd ship sinking. https://nineteenkeys.blogspot.com/2009/05/sinking-of-empress-of-canada.html My Father - Len Price - was a steward on the Empress of Canada. Several months later she met my father in law Aleksander Walczynski at a bus stop in Edinburgh when as a member of the polish free army she was being posted to Duplin castle in Perthshire where Alek was also stationed. This is a sad episode since along with 3000 British soldiers there were 500 Italian prisoners of war on board. Hello John,I believe the coordinates given in the transcript can be used as follows:Location of ship when torpedoed on 13 March 1943.position 1-13S, 9-57W1°13'00.0"S 9°57'00.0"WLocation of Lifeboats when spotted by plane on the morning of 14 March 1943.position 1-13S, 9-46W1°13'00.0"S 9°46'00.0"WThe locations are about 20km apart.If you paste the following link into your browser, Google Maps should open at the location given for the lifeboats.https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/1°13'00.0%22S+9°46'00.0%22W/@6.5998012,-17.8441135,6.23z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d-1.2166667!4d-9.7666667You will see that this location is approximately 400 miles due South from the nearest land and about 700 miles from Freetown, Liberia. Two days later an allied plane flew over. The liner had been built in 1922 by Fairfield’s at Govan. Tony, I think I may have a picture of your dad. She left Durban on 1st March for Cape Town, carrying 1,346 passengers, mainly 500 Italian POWs and a number of Greek, Norwegian and Polish refugees. After the war she went to medical school and never stopped being useful. They are as follows: Mass Grave - Remaining With Ship, Pointe-au-Pere, Quebec, Canada … Glynn Carauna, My dad was on the ship and I have quite a few photos he took. You would probably have known my father Denis Gent he's 96 now and tells his story, I had the pleasure of being a freind of Captain George Goold's son Ron.He talked a lot about his father and had many stories of his fathers time as Captain in the Empress line.One that sticks to my mind is Ron and his brother George telling us how their father stayed on the bridge until the ship was abandonded and literally walked offthe bridge and into the water.Ron had his father's Captains hat until he passed away in 1980, when it went to his brother George.The best part was how Captain Goold had had his crest sewn on upside down. He is buried at AlameinThanks Jen, I am looking but only a few names are listed on the memorial.https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?15464I also gave a facebook page for the canada ship.https://www.facebook.com/empressofcanadasinking/, Was Suzanne's name 'Roquere'? He often spoke of the sinking and seeing many of his mates being taken by sharks. Owens, thank you for sharing the sad story of your relative who passed away in Empress of Canada, of what seems by modern standards, to be a trivial illness. He had many stories to tell of his travels, friends and about the sinking.I can recount some of the stories and have come across lots of photos of the ship, the travels and of the people on the ship ,especially in the 40's. He lived until he was 80 and died in 2002 and my mother died in 2010. Occurring just two years after the RMS Titanic disaster, and a year before the loss of the RMS Lusitania, it is essentially forgotten. Trying to work out where my father was & when during WW2.I have his diary for all 1944 when he's in Palestine with the Middle East Forces in the RASC Mobile Petrol Filling Company..He went there via South Africa on the Empress of Canada & told us (his family) it was sunk on the return journey. When they had to abandon ship he said it was like jumping off a 3 story building into the sea full of oil and wreckage. The hulk of the EMPRESS OF CANADA was uprighted by a combined system of parbuckling and buoyancy. Editor's note: Find a Grave lists five additional burial and/or memorial locations for the Empress of Ireland disaster. As well as being a passenger liner in peacetime, Empress of Asia served as an armed merchant cruiser and a troopship in wartime. Canada Post will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland on May 29, with two stamp designs and two picture postal cards.. My father was a Royal Navy gunner in the D.E.M.S. All Digitized Passenger Lists For the SS Empress of Canada Available at the GG Archives. The ship was listing at 45 degrees and the deck was still very hot. Felix Bernasconi was a DEMS Gunner at the time of the sinking. On March 13, 1943, while en route from Durban, South Africa to Takoradi carrying Italian prisoners of war, the EMPRESS OF CANADA was torpedoed and sunk by Italian submarine LEONARDO DA VINCI, approximately 400 miles (640 km) south of Cape Palmas off the coast of Africa. M.I.McKie, Master Mariner (Retd) mac.mckie@gmail.com. Empress of Canada. My Dad is 92 years old but still talks about his war experiences as if it was just yesterday, My name is jack bell I was on the empress of Canada when she sunk I was an assistant steward I was 18 years old when the ship was torpedoed most every one was asleep except for crew tar still still had duties there was a lot of confusion as all of the electrics were out so no one could see there was a lot of screaming too some people including myself could not swim I climbed down a rope into the water with my life jacket on and manoeuvred myself away from the ship in case I got sucked under there were sharks in the water any many were attacked when light came I was alone in the water I saw an upturned lifeboat an made my way to it and scrambled on to the top of it . 17 (November): 87–88. I would be interested to learn of any information,eyewitness accounts or stories that have been past down to relatives of what happened and how it affected those involved please email. Fire on the River. My Uncle Ernie was returning to the U.K. on the Empress, as his ship (H.M.S. My dad Richard OUtrum Massy was the purser and a photographer on the ship from 1939 through the time it sunk. Many of the passengers travelling on … He was not a well man and died at 55 which is no surprise as I believe he was torpedeod twice. he also hated water. A Polish officer took control of the raft and helped her to survive. He was taken to seirra leone hospital where he spent two weeks recovering.my father was a very superstitious man he never liked friday the 13th. Though less storied than the Titanic, the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914 remains the largest peacetime maritime disaster in Canada’s history. My father, Divisional Officer Ernest Boughton of the Manchester Fire Brigade, was the first person to board the ship after the fire was brought under control, being the senior fire officer there that day. 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