The RMS Empress of Britain, sunk off the Irish coast in 1940, was one of the largest and most significant Allied shipping losses of the early Second World War.
The Ship
Built by John Brown & Co at Clydebank for the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company, the Empress of Britain was completed in 1931 - over 42,000 tons, nearly 232 metres (760 feet) long, capable of 24 knots, and carrying up to 1,195 passengers and 700 crew. She set a speed record on her maiden voyage between Southampton and Quebec and served as both an ocean liner and a luxury cruise ship through the 1930s.
In June 1939, she carried King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) home from Canada - one of the notable moments of her peacetime career.
Wartime Service and Loss
Repainted grey for wartime service as a troop transport, the Empress of Britain was attacked in October 1940 off Ireland’s west coast by a German long-range Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor bomber, which started a fire aboard. Most crew and passengers were evacuated safely, and a skeleton crew attempted to salvage the ship under tow - but the German submarine U-32 found the slow-moving convoy and torpedoed her. She sank on 28 October 1940 northwest of Bloody Foreland, County Donegal. In total, 45 crew and passengers died across the two attacks.
The Wreck
Discovered and explored in 1995, the wreck was found without the gold bullion sometimes rumoured to have been aboard - if any gold had been carried, it was likely removed in the two days between the initial bombing and the ship’s eventual sinking.
