Qualla: RMS Empress of Britain (1930)

RMS Empress of Britain (1930): Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bale, Stewart, Public domain. On the morning of 26 October 1940, a German Focke-Wulf 200 Condor banked out of the clouds about seventy miles northwest of Ireland and found the RMS Empress of Britain alone on the grey Atlantic. She was the largest, fastest, and most luxurious ocean liner Canadian Pacific had ever built, requisitioned now as a troopship and painted naval grey. Oberleutnant Bernhard Jope, the Condor's pilot, did not at first know what he had spotted. He strafed her three times and put two bombs into her midsection, then turned for his base in occupied France. By the time he landed, fires were spreading through her decks. Two days and one U-boat later, she was gone.

Image: Bale, Stewart | Public domain

RMS Empress of Britain (1930): The Five Day Atlantic Giantess

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hugh Llewelyn from Keynsham, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. Her keel was laid at John Brown & Co. in Clydebank in November 1928. The Prince of Wales launched her on 11 June 1930, in the first British shipyard ceremony ever broadcast by radio to Canada and the United States. She entered service in May 1931, and Canadian Pacific advertised ...

Image: Hugh Llewelyn from Keynsham, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

RMS Empress of Britain (1930): Apartments Instead of Cabins

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. She was a creature of the early thirties, all art deco grandeur and Cunard-rivalling luxury. Twelve steam turbines drove her four propeller shafts. Nine boilers, the first of their kind to combine eight Yarrow units with an experimental Johnson boiler, supplied her steam. The two...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

RMS Empress of Britain (1930): Grey Paint

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit أشرف العناني from alshekh zwaed, egypt, CC BY 2.0. On 25 November 1939, she was requisitioned as a troopship. The art deco lounges were cleared. She was painted grey. She made four transatlantic trips moving Canadian troops to England, then ran out to Wellington, New Zealand. She returned to Scotland in June 1940 as part of what ...

Image: أشرف العناني from alshekh zwaed, egypt | CC BY 2.0

RMS Empress of Britain (1930): Condor and U-Boat

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Collins, Tudor Washington, 1898-1970, photographer, CC BY 4.0. When Jope's Condor came down through the morning cloud, he hit her with two 250-kg bombs and ten machine-gun strafing runs. Fires took hold quickly in the midsection. At 9:50 am Captain Sapsworth ordered abandon ship. The fires blocked the boats amidships, so passengers and crew ...

Image: Collins, Tudor Washington, 1898-1970, photographer | CC BY 4.0

RMS Empress of Britain (1930): The Skeleton in the Bullion Room

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Imprial War Museum, London, Public domain. The British Empire was moving gold across the Atlantic throughout 1940 to pay for war supplies, and Empress of Britain had recently been in Cape Town. The persistent rumor that she went down with a fortune in gold proved partly true and mostly not. Salvagers found the wreck in 19...

Image: Imprial War Museum, London | Public domain