We all have heard about the Titanic sinking in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912. What seems to be long forgotten is Canada’s greatest maritime tragedy that occurred only two years later and in the same general part of the world. It’s a tragic story of over one thousand lives lost as the RMS Empress of Ireland collided with the Norwegian coal ship the SS Storstad in a thick fog.
Background
Beginning in 1907, the RMS Empress of Ireland and its twin the Empress of Britain was a quick and reliable means of transportation between Quebec City, Canada, and Liverpool. England. It took two days to clear away from the St. Lawrence River and another four days to cross the Atlantic. The passengers of these ships, unlike the Titanic, didn’t include many of the rich and famous. Many passengers were poor immigrants.
Like the Titanic, there were first, second, and third-class passengers but the second and third class had adequate accommodations on the Empress of Ireland. Safety was considered an important element of these voyages.
The RMS Empress of Ireland initially had wooden lifeboats but after the Titanic accident, they were replaced by 16 steel lifeboats. Another 26 wooden lifeboats were stored underneath the others. The lifeboats had a total capacity of 1,686 which was 280 more than they were licensed to carry.
There were ten watertight bulkheads from the double bottom to beneath the Shelter Deck. All bulkheads could be sealed by 24 watertight doors. These doors had to be closed manually. Lifeboat drills were commonplace. The insurance company, Lloyds of London, gave the ship its highest safety rating.
Prequel To Tragedy
Thursday, May 28, 1914, was quite warm and humid in Quebec City. The RMS Empress of Ireland was set to depart this St. Lawrence River city around 4:30 p.m.
The ship had completed 95 voyages between the two cities without major incidents. The 96th one had a new Captain. Henry George Kendall had quickly risen through the Canadian Pacific ranks and had plenty of experience. This was his first voyage as captain of the Empress of Ireland.
The RMS Empress of Ireland departed Quebec City with a crew of 420 and 1,057 passengers. Included were 167 members of a Salvation Army band who would be playing at an exposition in London. The band sang and played as the ship was ready to depart.
As this was taking place, two other elements to the story would come together with the Empress of Ireland to create an unimaginable tragedy.
There was another vessel involved in this story. The SS Storstad was a coal ship that had left the port of Sydney Nova Scotia and headed for the St. Lawrence River.
If there ever was a ship you could be involved in a collision with, the Storstad wasn’t one of them. Since the ship often traveled in far northern latitude waters it was designed to break through thick ice. The Storstad was a coal cargo ship that weighed over 10,000 tons. when fully loaded.
On May 28th the air mass over the mouth of the St. Lawrence River was warm and humid. The water temperature from the adjacent North Atlantic to the St. Lawrence was cold. The rapid cooling of a warm and humid air mass allows for quick condensation and fog develops easily in those conditions.
A Catastrophic Collision
The RMS Empress of Ireland departed Quebec City on the St, Lawrence River just a shade before 4:30 p.m. on May 28, 1914. Because of the sweltering conditions several third-class passengers opened their portholes to let some air in even though it was not legal.
Shortly thereafter, supper was served and passengers began to settle down for the night and some tucked their children into bed before going to bed themselves. A few others strolled around the ship to see the sights before calling it a night.
The ship made a brief stop at Rimouski to drop off some mail before moving out again up the St. Lawrence. At midnight, May 29th was upon them, most of the passengers were asleep. All was well, it seemed.
As the clock passed 1 a.m. the ship encountered areas of fog. Procedures to deal with navigating in fog were enacted. Captain Kendall returned to the bridge of the ship around 1:30 a.m.
A few minutes later, the masthead lights of another ship were sighted by crew members on the bridge. Captain Kendall found his binoculars and saw that it was the Norwegian ship, Storstad. The Storstad was off the starboard bow several miles away. The captain continued to observe the Storstad until it disappeared in dense fog.
The captain of the Storstad was Thomas Andersen who, by some accounts, was asleep at the time. Crews from both ships repeatedly used fog whistles to warn the other. Captain Kendall ordered that his ship come to a stop and used his whistles to indicate that he was dead in the water.
At nearly 2 a.m. Captain Kendall saw the Storstad appearing from the fog and it was headed right for his ship. He immediately ordered “full speed ahead” but it was too late. The Empress of Ireland took a direct hit from the Storstad on the starboard side at the boiler room.
The helpless ship listed rapidly to starboard. There was no time to close the watertight doors (remember that this had to be done manually). A gaping hole in her side caused the lower decks to flood at a rate alarming to the crew. Water also rushed into the (illegally) open portholes in the third-class area.
In just three minutes, rushing water, estimated at 60,000 gallons per second knocked out all power. Captain Kendal ordered lifeboats to be lowered and an S.O.S was sent by the wireless crew.
Most of the passengers in the lower decks drowned quickly. Some passengers from the upper decks jumped into the icy waters. The list was so severe that only five lifeboats could be launched. In just over ten minutes, the Empress of Ireland fell to her side. The poor souls still clinging to the side of the ship were thrown off into the water. The ship then disappeared quickly into the river.
Ironically, one passenger, William Clarke who survived this tragedy was also a “Titanic” survivor. He described the difference between the Titanic which took a long time to sink and the Empress of Ireland which sank in a matter of minutes. “The Titanic went down like a little baby going to sleep, while the Empress of Ireland, much as I hate to admit it, rolled over like a hog in a ditch.” Clarke also said, “I am done with the sea” and he never traveled by ship again.
The Storstad was damaged but it didn’t sink. There were no casualties. The ship lowered her own lifeboats and began to rescue many survivors in the water.
The photo shows a damaged Stolstad after its collision with the HMS Empress of Ireland. Photo Credit-Public Domain.
The radio operator at Father Point who received the S.O.S. from Empress of Ireland noticed two Canadian government steamers, Eureka at Father Point Wharf, and Lady Evelyn at Rimouski Wharf.
Eureka was first on the scene and by 3 a.m. It returned to Father Point Wharf with 32 survivors and several bodies. Eureka was told to go to Rimouski Wharf where Lady Evelyn arrived around 4 a.m. with more survivors and bodies.
Shortly after 6 a.m. the survivors and bodies Storstad had on board were transferred to Eureka and transported to Rimouski Wharf. The Storstad went on to Quebec City.
The photo shows Dr, James F. Clarke and two nurses tending to a patient who was a passenger on the HMS Empress of Ireland at the Hotel Frontenac in Quebec City. Photo Credit- Library of Congress.
All told, 1,012 lost their lives. There were 134 children on board and only four survived. Only eight of the 167 Salvation Army Band members survived.
Aftermath
Despite it all, there was a true hero in this event. The ship’s surgeon Dr. James F. Clarke survived the ordeal by climbing out of his window on the Empress of Ireland and making his way to one of the lifeboats of the Storstad.
After reaching the Storstad he participated in treating injured victims of the Empress of Ireland, including the setting of broken bones. Dr. Clarke also treated more patients at a makeshift facility at the Hotel Frontenac in Quebec City.
A Commission of Inquiry was held in Quebec City and it began on June 16th, 1914, and went on for eleven days. Presiding over proceedings was Lord Mersey. He was notable for having headed the official inquiries into several significant steamship tragedies, including the Titanic. The next year, he would lead the inquiry into the sinking of the Lusitania.
Many witnesses were questioned and without getting into the weeds there were contradicting stories and plenty of finger-pointing. The inquiry found that the Storstad was entirely at fault. The decision became a simple issue: which of the two ships changed her course during the fog event? They concluded that it was Storstad who ported her helm, changed her course, and brought about the collision.
The bow-damaged SS Storstad was seized and given to the Canadian Pacific. They sold it to Prudential Trust for $ 175,000.
Here are some statistics from the tragedy: Source-Wikipedia
A significant question is why is this tragedy not remembered like the Titanic. Perhaps one reason was that The Empress of Ireland only had 87 first-class passengers, while the Titanic had many “celebrities” on its maiden voyage. Canada’s population was only around 7.5 million at the time and the nation often sat in the shadow of the United States and Great Britain. Another reason could have been that World War I began shortly thereafter,
Both Captains served in the war and ironically both served on ships that were torpedoed and both survived.
After Canadian Pacific sold the Storstad it was sunk by a German U-boat on March 8, 1917, near the coast of Ireland. All crew members survived the attack.
Recovery
The Empress of Ireland rested on the bottom of the St. Lawrence River about 130 feet below the surface. This made it relatively easy for diving crews to reach it. Shortly after the disaster, a crew recovered 318 bags of mail and 212 bars of silver bullion) worth about $150,000 (about 1.5 million in today’s dollars).
Around 800 bodies were ultimately recovered from the doomed ship.
In 1964, a group of Canadian divers recovered a brass bell. In the 1970s, another group of divers recovered a stern telemeter, pieces of Marconi radio equipment, a brass porthole, and a compass.
In 1999 the wreck was declared a site of historical and archaeological importance and thus became protected under the Cultural Property Act and was listed in the Register of Historic Sites Of Canada.
This was the first time that an underwater site had received this status in Quebec. A marker in the St. Lawrence River is located at the crash site (see below).
According to irishcentral.com, the Canadian Museum of History unveiled a powerful, inclusive, detailed exhibition titled “Canada’s Titanic – The Empress of Ireland” for the 100th anniversary on May 29, 2014, which ran through April 6, 2015.
It featured more than 500 recovered items from the wreckage, compiled by collectors and diver Philippe Beaudry: documents and artifacts such as dishware and furniture from the ship’s separate classes, photographs, personal papers, the ship’s bell, a porthole, and an eight-year-old survivor’s memoir.
Meteorological Conditions
A ridge of high pressure aloft produced warm temperatures across eastern Canada. A southwesterly flow on the back side of a surface high pressure offshore brought in warm and humid air from the southwest. As this warm, moist air mass passed over the cold waters around the mouth of the St. Lawrence, condensation occurred and fog formed.
The map shows the St. Lawrence River collision site on May 29, 1914, along with surface weather conditions. Map Credit-Wikipedia.
The fog became so dense around the collision site that even though the crews on both ships saw the impending collision, it was much too late to avoid disaster.
