1928 Empress of Australia+Empress of France Cruise Book

Pricing & History

Sold for
Start Free Trial or Sign In to see what it's worth.
Sold Date
Source eBay

Empress of France+Empress Australia-1928 View Slide Show 1920s Empress of France+Australia Cruise Books Lot includes the souviner cruise book for each ship described below. Both include wonderful art. Condition=good (Empress of France has a slight tear on outer edge). Each measures about 16x11 RMS Empress of Australia was an ocean liner built in 1913-1919 by Vulcan AG shipyard in Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland ) for the Hamburg America Line . She was refitted for Canadian Pacific Steamships ; and the ship -- the third of three CP vessels to be named Empress of China -- was renamed yet again in 1922 as the Empress of Australia. In trans-Pacific service, the ship garnered fame for her part in rescue efforts at Tokyo following the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923 In trans-Atlantic service, she earned distinction in 1927 by bringing the Prince of Wales from England to the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in Canada . She was honored to serve as Royal Yacht during the Royal tour of Canada in 1939. In 1916, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered her to be completed as his royal yacht , in which he intended to receive the allied navel fleets when they surrendered. Her first trip, however, was to sail from Hamburg to Hull on 1 December 1919. She was then used as a troop ship under P & O Line management. She was refitted by John Brown & Company , Clydebank , and renamed again to RMS Empress of Australia in August 1921. By 1922 she sailed from Greenock to the Pacific via Panama. After 20 voyages across the Pacific , Canadian Pacific were forced to deal with her poor performance and chose to re-engine and re-boiler the ship. She sailed to Govan Fairfield at Glasgow , arriving 9 September 1926. The vastly complex work was made more difficult by her divided uptakes, offering no central space to remove machinery. Old boilers were sliced up and removed in pieces, the whole job lasting many months and cost over half a million pounds. Empress re-entered the devastated harbor and sent her boats ashore manned by a combination of crew, local residents, and passenger volunteers. Refugees were brought aboard, transferred from the ship to other vessels, or taken to Kobe. To aid the victims, the ships officers and most of the passengers donated everything they could spare. She finally departed Yokohama on 12 September 1923, returning to her routine duties; but her services were not forgotten. Captain Robinson received numerous awards in recognition of his actions, including the CBE , and award of the Lloyds Silver Medal. A group of passengers and refugees who were aboard during the disaster commissioned a bronze tablet and presented it to the ship in recognition of the relief efforts. When the Empress of Australia was scrapped in 1952, the bronze tablet was rescued and presented to Captain Robinson, then aged 82, in a special ceremony in Vancouver The Empress was sent to Southampton, w she was to be converted into a troopship; painted in grey, fitted with a three-inch (76 mm) gun and with a carrying capacity of 5,000. It was in this role that she would remain for the next 13 years. The Empress of Australia left on her first wartime voyage to Ceylon and Bombay on 28 September 1939. joined a large convoy carrying Canadian soldiers to the battlefields of Europe. During the entire war, the Empress of Australia enjoyed very good luck. In 1941, it was widely reported that she'd been torpedoed off the coast of Africa, but she survived that brush with disaster. She was only seriously damaged once, when she was holed by the Orient Line's 14,982 ton Ormonde during the North Africa campaign in January 1943. Her final wartime voyage was from Hong Kong with ex- prisoners of war and internees. After World War II the Empress of Australia worked world wide as a troop ship in every theater of war, including carrying military personnel to Pusan during the Korean War . EMPRESS OF FRANCE RMS Empress of France was an ocean liner built in 1913-1914 ... read more

Items in the Price Guide are obtained exclusively from licensors and partners solely for our members’ research needs.

Flag item for content or copyright

If this item contains incorrect or inappropriate information please contact us here to flag it for review.

If you are the originator/copyright holder of this photo/item and would prefer it be excluded from our community, contact us here for removal.