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The remarkable story of how one ship - doomed by war - intersected lives and crossed into history. Completed in 1913 for Canadian Pacific, the
Empress of Asia plied the oceans for nearly 30 years. Built for long-haul ocean travel during peace-time, she saw wartime service as an armed merchant cruiser and troopship before Japanese dive-bombers destroyed her in 1942.
Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, she brought continents and people together, delivering mail and multimillion-dollar consignments of silk. As a luxurious passenger liner, she was a "Greyhound of the Pacific," braving epic storms and smashing transpacific speed records. From stokehold to bridge, steerage to first-class staterooms, she steamed with a kaleidoscope of lives, including courageous and recalcitrant crew, immigrants and refugees seeking a better life or relief from disaster, drug smugglers, weapons dealers, and the idle and not-so-idle rich.
This is the dramatic story of how that one ship and the lives of those on board intersected during a tumultuous period of world history, culminating in her sinking off Singapore in the Second World War.
About the author
Dan Black is the former editor of
Legion Magazine and author or co-author of three previous books, including
Harry Livingstone's Forgotten Men: Canadians and the Chinese Labour Corps in the First World War. He lives near Ottawa.
