Famous ships that called at the Cape – John H Marsh Maritime Collection

A 1930s speedster of note! Fastest time for Vancouver to Yokohama voyage THE EMPRESS liners built for Canadian Pacific were large, impressive ships of quality construction. “Japan”, photographed above by John Marsh on February 8, 1941 when she arrived at Cape Town harbour carrying a large contingent of troops, was built in 1929 by Fairfields at Govan. A high sided, three funnelled ship with an impressive turn of speed, she set the fastest time for the Vancouver to Yokohama voyage in 1930. With the advent of War in 1939, Empress of Japan was requisitioned by British forces for trooping duties and formed part of early convoys from Australia and New Zealand to Suez. When Japan entered the War in 1942, her name was changed to “Empress of Scotland” – the former name seeming too ominous for the troops on board heading for the Singapore garrison. The latter fell shortly thereafter to the Japanese. By the end of hostilities Empress of Scotland had covered some 687 000 miles carrying nearly 300 000 troops. As the sole survivor of the Canadian Pacific’s pre-war trans-Pacific fleet of which she was the flagship, she was released to the owners again to resume normal peace-time activities after a refit and alterations. With the growth of the post-war German merchant fleet in the mid 1950s, Hamburg re-entered the traditional trans-Atlantic passenger service and in 1957 Hamburg-Atlantic Linie GMBH purchased the laid- up Empress of Scotland for one million pounds. An astonishing conversion took place with the new “Hanseatic” emerging, modernised and with two funnels instead of three and air-conditioning to boot. Although the ship was built in 1929, she was in excellent condition and cruised the North Atlantic for the next eight years. In 1966 she was badly damaged by a fire in New York harbour and broke loose while under tow to Hamburg for repair. The once proud Empress now faced demolition and in the same year was sold to Eisen & Metall AG, Hamburg, to be broken up.