The Forgotten Empress

Just two years after the Titanic struck an iceberg and only one year before the Lusitania became a casualty of war, the waters of the St. Lawrence Seaway claimed The Empress of Ireland - a royal name for a majestic ship that prided herself on safety. But in the early hours of May 29, 1914, even an experienced crew couldn't save all of the 1,477 people on board. Fourteen minutes after being broad sided by The Storstad, a Norwegian coal ship, The Empress plunged 170 feet below the surface taking 1,012 doomed men, women and children with her. If only they had listened to the cat.

Under the command of Captain Henry George Kendall, The Empress of Ireland prepared to leave port in Quebec on Thursday afternoon heading for Liverpool. Right before the great ship set sail, a small, yellow tabby, which had spent the last two years as a privileged traveler among the crew, jumped ship. One observant steward spied the mutinous cat, chased her down and carried her back on board. She stubbornly slipped away again, running down the gangplank and this time disappearing into the crowd who came to see The Empress off. As the gangplank was raised and the ship slowly departed, the cat reappeared on the wharf and watched intently as The Empress made her way into the St. Lawrence Seaway for the last time.

When the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) purchased the Allan and Elder Dempster shipping lines in 1903, they fully intended to compete with the successful Cunard and White Star shipping companies. The CPR's first order of business was commissioning two passenger liners, The Empress of Ireland, and her sister ship, The Empress of Britain. The Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company built the ships in Govan, Scotland. Each weighed 14,000 tons and could cruise up to 20 knots. They could make the 2,800-mile voyage from Liverpool to Quebec in a remarkable six days-four on the formidable Atlantic and two in the relative safety of the St. Lawrence Seaway-a timeline that appealed to most voyagers who feared a long crossing on the uninviting ocean.

The ships were 549 feet long and 66 feet wide. First class accommodations held up to 300 passengers, while second class was designed for a maximum of 450. Another 800 could travel in third class or steerage. In total, the ship could carry 1,550 passengers. First class was opulent with an elegant dining room, music room, library and atrium that rose up two levels. In contrast, third class and steerage was hardly extravagant, but the CPR insisted on comfortable berths for the many immigrants who came to Canada from Europe. The company hoped that someday, these same travelers would proudly book their return passage home in one of The Empress' upper classes.

As The Empress headed down the St. Lawrence Seaway for her ninety-sixth and final voyage, she carried sixteen steel lifeboats, twenty collapsibles, and six canvas types. All together, these rescue boats accommodated 1,968 people-almost 500 more than were actually on board. Fire, navigation and evacuation drills were mandatory and the crew performed regularly scheduled lifeboat drills. Since The Titanic disaster, there was no such thing as being overly cautious.

That first evening at sea was quiet. A formal dinner was served at seven o'clock for first and second-class passengers as the ship's string orchestra played. Afterward, some guests retired to their cabins, while others chose to visit the library or have a cigar in the smoking room. Third class dined much more simply at five-thirty. The Salvation Army Band, traveling with a large contingent to Liverpool, gave an impromptu performance. By ten o'clock, most passengers were in their rooms when Augustus Gaade, The Empress' Chief Steward, began his final rounds of the day. Close to midnight, he found a few hearty men still enjoying cigars in the smoking room. It was a peaceful start to their journey. Satisfied that all was well on board his ship, Gaade retired to his own quarters.

At one-thirty a.m., The Empress rendezvoused near Rimouski with a pilot cutter, The Eureka, just long enough to hand over several bags of mail. She continued on course, picking up speed to about 17 knots. Seaman John Carroll, watching from the crow's nest, spotted two tiny lights far off to the east as a low bank of fog crept toward them from the shore. Captain Kendall gave three short blasts on The Empress' whistle hoping to make the other ship aware of their presence. As the fog worsened, Kendall ordered the engines turned off, and then put into full reverse, attempting to bring his ship to a complete stop. The oncoming ship signaled back with a single long blast. The Empress responded with three more short blasts of her own.

As The Empress came to a halt, there was another long blast from the approaching ship-only this time closer. Kendall answered back with two more long blasts warning that his ship was 'dead in the water.' The next blast from the ominous ship was closer yet. In a matter of seconds, The Storstad's lights pierced the thick fog heading straight for The Empress. Horrified, the captain signaled the engine-room to move full speed ahead and at the same time ordered the ship to veer right. Futilely, he screamed through his bridge megaphone at the oncoming ship, "Go astern!" There was no reply.

It was the worst possible situation. The Storstad was a powerful Norwegian collier weighing 6,000 tons and hauling a full load of coal up the St. Lawrence Seaway. In the fog, The Storstad's confused first mate, in charge while the captain slept, ordered his ship to turn what he thought was away from The Empress. Instead they headed straight for her. Built with a sharp vertical stern designed to cut through ice-filled waters, she hit The Empress below the water line while more than a thousand passengers slept in their bunks. It was a deceptively gentle blow that caused no immediate panic, but left a gaping hole twenty-five feet deep and 14 feet wide.

The Empress instantly took on water-60,000 gallons per second. Kendall, thinking that if the two ships stayed together, The Storstad could act as a plug slowing the onrush of water, yelled through the megaphone. "Keep going ahead on your engines." Instead, as the disbelieving Kendall watched, The Storstad backed away disappearing into the fog from where it came. The mortally wounded Empress was on her own.

The uncompromising waters of the St. Lawrence flooded through her lower decks. A hasty SOS was sent, but the wireless operators were unable to provide their exact position. Within eight minutes, The Empress lost power and listed hard to the right as the heavy waters began pulling her down. If they hadn't drowned in their beds, the travelers had only moments to find their way through the dark ship.

Those who could, came up on deck, where the captain ordered the lifeboats launched, but time was against them. Only nine lifeboats actually made it to the water below. Ten minutes after the collision, The Empress sharply rolled to her right crushing one of the lifeboats beneath her and tossing hundreds of people (including her captain) into the icy seaway. She briefly rested on her side, and then fourteen minutes after she was struck, succumbed to the water, completely disappearing below the surface.

The Storstad immediately lowered her lifeboats to help rescue survivors and bring them to safety on board the collier. Each time the sailors rowed back to the scene, they found fewer and fewer alive. Two rescue ships, including The Eureka who had rendezvoused with The Empress just before the accident, arrived on the scene forty-five minutes after receiving the faltering ship's SOS. They were too late. The Empress was gone and there was no one to rescue-only bodies to retrieve. The next morning the counts were in: 465 survived, 1,012 perished. Of the 138 children on board only four were saved.

Perhaps the most unusual of all the survivors was Crewman William Clarke, an ex-soldier from Ireland. He not only cheated death the night The Empress sank, but he was also a Titanic survivor. When asked to compare the two disasters, he asserted that The Empress was by far the worst of the two. "There was no waiting with The Empress. You just saw what you had to do and did it…The Titanic went down straight, like a baby goes to sleep. The Empress rolled over like a hog in a ditch."

The following month, an eleven-day inquiry was held in Quebec. The group, headed by Lord Mersey, who also presided over both The Titanic and The Lusitania inquisitions, found The Storstad at fault. Later, a Norwegian inquisition held in Montreal absolved the collier and blamed The Empress. Regardless of what really happened, the fact remains that the sinking of The Empress was the worst maritime disaster in Canadian history. The total number of lives lost that night was less than that of The Titanic and The Lusitania, but the total number of passengers The Empress took with her was greater-840 in all (eight more than The Titanic and fifty-five more than The Lusitania).

Amazingly, The Empress of Ireland is one of history's best-kept secrets. Her story lacked the drama that The Titanic boasted. She was not on her maiden voyage and her passengers were not aristocratic Americans. Foundering in The St Lawrence Seaway was not the same as sinking in the vast Atlantic. Of course, timing was also a factor. Just two months later, World War I erupted in Europe. Modern warfare now preoccupied the world. When The Lusitania was torpedoed generating international headlines, the tragedy of The Empress of Ireland faded to oblivion.

No one could have foreseen The Empress' disastrous end. No one that is except, perhaps, a small yellow tabby that refused to set sail down the St. Lawrence Seaway on the afternoon of May 28, 1914. What was it she sensed as she ran off the ship for the second time that day? What was she thinking as she watched the great ship sail away on her final journey? Maybe, in her own cat-like way, she was saying farewell and wishing them all Godspeed.