The tragic story of the Empress of Ireland: an authentic account of the most horrible disaster in Canadian history constructed from the real facts obtained from those on board who survived and other great sea disasters

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction 9

I. The Empress of Ireland Sails to Her

Introduction

^^r j AHOSE who go down to the sea in ships" was once I a synonym for those who gambled with death and put their Hves upon the hazard. Today the mortahty at sea is less than on common carriers on land. But the futility of absolute prevention of accident is emphasized again and again. The regulation of safety makes catastrophes like that of the Empress of Ireland all the more tragic and terrible. A blow, a ripping, the side taken out of a ship, darkness, the inrush of waters, a panic, and then in the hush the silent corpses drifting by.

So with the Canadian liner. She has gone to her grave leaving a trail of sorrow behind her. Hundreds of human hearts and homes are in mourning for the loss of dear companions and friends. The universal sympathy which is written in every face and heard in every voice proves that man is more than the beasts that perish. It is an evidence of the divine in humanity. Why should we care? There is no reason in the world, unless there is something in us that is different from lime and carbon and phosphorus, something that makes us mortals able to suffer together —

''For we have all of us an human heart."

10 INTRODUCTION

The collision which sent the Empress of Ireland to the bottom of the St. Lawrence with hundreds of passengers in their berths produced a shudder throughout the civilized world. And the effect on the spirits of the millions who received the shock will not soon pass off. The Titanic tragedysat heavy on the minds of the people of this generation for months after it happened.

^ V There is hardly any one in touch with world affairs who will not feel himself drawn into the circle of mourners over such a disaster. From every center of great calamity waves of sympathetic sorrow spread to far-distant strangers, but the perishing of great numbers in a shipwreck seems to impress our human nature more profoundly than do accidents or visitations of other kinds in which the toll of death is as great. Our concern for those in danger seems to turn especially to those in peril on the sea.

Science has wrought miracles for the greater protection of those afloat. Wireless telegraphy, air-tight compartments, the construction which has produced what is called "the unsinkable ship," have added greatly to the safety of ocean travel. But science cannot eliminate the element of error. None of the aids that the workers for safe transit have bestowed on navigation could avail to prevent what happened in the early hours of May 29, 1914. The Empress of Ireland was rammed by another vessel, and so crushed as to be unable to remain afloat for more than fifteen minutes after the impact.

Overwhelmed by the catastrophe we fall back upon that

INTRODUCTION 11

faith in the Unseen Power which is never shaken by the appearance of what seems to be unnecessary evil or inexplicable cruelty. Trust in God involves the belief that behind the stupendous processes of natural life there is a divine wisdom so deeply grounded upon reality that no human mind can comprehend its precepts and a divine love so boundless in its compassion that no human heart can measure its scope. We concede the knowledge of the divine mind to be "too wonderful" for our understanding. "It is high: I cannot attain unto it."

Therefore we are prepared for the awful, the mysterious, and even the terrible. Nothing in the universal process can disturb or confound us. If a thing appears to be evil it is wisdom which is at fault. If an event seems to be cruel it is our love which is blind. We look upon the chances and changes of human experience even as we gaze at night upon the movements of the heavenly spheres; we would as little think of questioning the beneficence of the one as of the other.

Come sorrow or joy, failure or success, death or life — it is all the same. We trust God, and therefore we trust life, which is simply the thing that God is doing. "Though he slay me, yet wiU I trust in him!" Yea, it is only when God seems to slay us that we can trust in Him, for trust begins only when knowledge fails; just as the stars shine only when the sun is gone!

HE rS THE PILOT IN A FOG

CHAPTER I The Empress of Ireland Sails to Her Doom

another toll of the sea — the empress sails from quebec — the holiday humor of the passengers — captain kendall warned of fogs — the storstad sighted — ^fog suddenly settles — the storstad crashes into the empress — ^injury on stahboard side — ^a mortal blow — wireless calls for help — ^hundreds drown in cabin — no time to rouse passengers — ^life-boats launched in record time — the empress goes down.

ONCE again an appalling sea disaster comes to remind us that no precautions man can take will make him immune against the forces that nature, when she so wills, can assemble against him. It is a truism to say that the most recent marine disaster was preventable. An accident suggests the idea of preventability. The Empress of Ireland was equipped with modern appliances for safety. She had longitudinal and transverse water-tight steel bulkheads and the submarine signaling and wireless apparatus. She was being navigated with all the precaution and care which the dangers of the course and the atmospheric conditions demanded. The Storstad had been sighted and signaled. The Empress was at a standstill, or slowly moving backward in response to a hasty reversal of the engines. Nothing apparently that those responsible for the lives of their passengers could do to safeguard those lives was left undone, and yet hundreds of people perished miserably.

THE EMPRESS SAILS FROM QUEBEC

Proudly the Empress of Ireland, under the command of Lieutenant Henry George Kendall of the Royal Navy Reserves, moved from her dock at Quebec, about half past four on the afternoon of Thursday, May 28, 1914, bound for Liverpool. Amid scenes that are ever new and full of deep feeling to those who are taking their leave or bidding God-speed to dear ones, the majestic ship began what her hundreds of light-hearted passengers anticipated as a hon voyage. The last "' Good-bye, and God bless you!" had been said; the last embrace had been bestowed; the last '' AU ashore that's going ashore," had been called out; the last home-stayer had regretfully hurried down the gang-board; and then, while hands, hats and handkerchiefs were waved, with the ship's band playing a solemn hymn, distance grew apace between the Empress and the land.

THE HOLIDAY HUMOR OF THE PASSENGERS

Fainter and fainter the crowd on the dock appeared to the passengers on board, until finally the dock itseK was lost to view as the graceful vessel gained headway. Some of the passengers remained long at the ship's rail, held by the fascination of the water, which seemed swiftly to approach.

and as swiftly to move away. Others, singly or in groups, left the rail to arrange their belongings in their staterooms, to inspect the magnificence of the vessel's equipment, and to accustom themselves to their new surroundings.

Twilight settled without dampening the gay humor of the throng. The first meal on board was eaten with a relish which only the occasion could impart, and the passengers disposed themselves for the full enjoyment of the evening.

CAPTAIN KENDALL WARNED OF FOGS

Captain Kendall had been warned of the prevalence of fogs in the lower river, and information had reached the liner also that there were forest fires in Quebec which were throwing smoke blankets over the St. Lawrence. Having experienced such conditions before, the commander of the Empress, while quite unalarmed, took the usual precautions.

As night came on he reduced the liner's speed. The night was still clear when the incoming Alsatian passed so closely that her passengers had a fine view of the big Canadian Pacific Railway ship, which showed beautifuUy and majestically as she swung by with her decks blazing with electric lights.

Captain Kendall stopped his ship at Rimouski, a town of 2,000 inhabitants, on the New Brunswick shore, about 180 miles northeast of Quebec as the channel flows. It is a mail station, the last outpost of the Dominion mail service. Bags of mail were loaded aboard, and the Empress moved steadily out into the broad river.

At this point the St. Lawrence, leading into the inland sea, which is the gulf of St. Lawrence, is thirty miles wide. The channel runs about ten miles from the New Brunswick shore and about twenty miles from the Quebec shore.

At midnight the tide was running in strongly. The weather was cold and there was a piercing sting to the air. The mercury had faUen to just above the freezing point. Few passengers were stirring after midnight. It was too cold on deck to make late vigils pleasurable. There were a few parties in the smoking room at bridge and poker, but the great majority of the passengers were in their berths.

THE STOKSTAD SIGHTED

At half past one o'clock Friday morning the Empress reached Father Point, where the pilot was dropped. The vessel then proceeded at full speed. After passing the Cock Point gas buoy. Captain Kendall sighted the Norwegian coUier Storstad. To quote from his own story, as he has told it in another chapter: "The Storstad was then about one point on my starboard bow. At that time I saw a slight fog bank coming gradually from the land and knew it' was going to pass between the Storstad and myself. The Storstad was about two miles away at the time.

FOG SUDDENLY SETTLES

"Then the fog came and the Storstad lights disappeared. I rang full speed astern on my engines and stopped my ship. At the same time I blew three short blasts on the steamer's o « « g.£S Ci.

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o whistle, meaning ' I am going full speed astern.' The Storstad answered with the whistle, giving me one prolonged blast. I then looked over the side of my ship into the water and saw my ship was stopped. I stopped my engines and blew two long blasts, meaning ' my ship was under way but stopped and has no way upon her.' He answered me again with one prolonged blast. The sound was then about four points upon my starboard bow. It was still foggy. I then looked out to where the sound came from. About two minutes afterward I saw his red and green lights. He would then be about one ship's length away from me.

THE STORSTAD CRASHES INTO THE EMPRESS

''I shouted to him through the megaphone to go full speed astern as I saw the danger of collision was inevitable. At the same time I put my engines fuU speed ahead, with my helm hard aport, with the object of avoiding, if possible, the shock. Almost at the same time he came right in and cut me down in a line between the funnels."

Captain Thomas Andersen, who commanded the Storstad, gives a different explanation of the approach of the two ships. According to his version, which is given elsewhere under his own name, "the vessels sighted each other when far apart. The Empress of Ireland was seen off the port bow of the Storstad. The Empress of Ireland's green or starboard light was visible to those on the Storstad. Under these circumstances the rules of navigation gave the Storstad the right of way. The heading of the Empress was then changed in such a manner as to put the vessels in a position to pass safely. Shortly after a fog enveloped fkst the Empress and then the Storstad.

"Fog signals were exchanged. The Storstad's engines were at once slowed and then stopped. Her heading remained unaltered. Whistles from the Empress were heard on the Storstad's port bow and were answered. The Empress of Ireland was then seen through the fog close at hand on the port bow of the Storstad. She was showing her green light and was making considerable headway.

"The engines of the Storstad were at once reversed at full speed and her headway was nearly checked when the vessels came together."

INJURY ON STARBOARD SIDE

The horrible fact, about which there can be no dispute, is that the Storstad crashed bow on into the side of the big Canadian liner, striking it on the starboard side about midway of its length. The steel-sheathed bow of the collier cut through the plates and shell of the Empress and penetrated the hull for a distance of about twelve feet, according to the

best testimony.

The water didn't flow in. It rushed in. From such stories as could be gathered from survivors and from members of the crew, it appears that Captain Kendall and his officers did all that was humanly possible in the fourteen minutes that the Empress hung on the river.

Captain Kendall said that he rang to the engine-room for full speed ahead, with the object of trying to run ashore and save the passengers, but almost immediately after the engines stopped and the ship began to list rapidly. The captain of the Storstad declares that it was this action of Captain KendaU that prevented him from holding the bow of the Storstad in the gaping hole it made and that it was the Empress herself, with the way upon her, following the order "Full steam ahead," which drew away from the Storstad, bending the collier's bow out of the great gash in the liner's side, and disappeared in the fog. What further damage may have been done as the vessels parted no one seemed to know certainly.

FOUGHT FOR LIFE IN DARKNESS

Instantly, it seemed as though there was a nightmare of sounds, cries of fear and agony that were too awful to be real. All lights went out almost at once. More than 1,400 persons were fighting for life in the black dark; yet, for the most part the flight was not one of panic, but grim determination to find, if possible, some means of safety.

Wireless operator Bomford and others who managed to win a way to the top deck saw scores leap into the sea. They saw hundreds trying to crawl up decks that were sloping precipitously, lose their balance and fall backward into the rising water. Passengers who couldn't get to the few lifeboats in time seized chairs, anything loose they could find, and leaped into the river.

Very many persons perished in the cold water while clinging to bits of wreckage and prajring for help.

^A/D POSIT/ON COL US/ON

AP£D

THE COLLISION ON THE ST. LAWRENCE

To make clear the somewhat contradictory testimony of Captain Kendall, of the Empress of Ireland, and Captain Andersen, of the collier Storstad, as to what took place just before and at the time of the fatal collision, diagrams Nos. 1 and 2, which are based on_ their statements, tell their own story. In No. 1 the vessels are shown in the position in which they were when first sighted, about which position both captains agree, the Storstad coming up the river on the starboard, or right side of the Empress of Ireland, so that those on the Storstad saw the green, or starboard, light of the Empress of Ireland over the port, or left, bow of the Storstad. The collier was in such a position that those on the Empress of Ireland could see both its red, port, light and its green, starboard, light. If the rules of the sea had been observed, the Empress of Ireland would have gone off to the right or steered to starboard so that the vessels would have passed each other easily. Instead, both vessels took a course which finally ended in position No. 2, in which the Storstad struck the Empress of Ireland between the funnels on the right, or stai'board, side, hitting it a glancing blow with its starboard, or right, bow. As to how this fatal position was reached, the captains disagree, the question of the kind of signals and what response was made, or should have been made, being in dispute.

A MORTAL BLOW

In a moment the fate of the Empress was known to all. The one smashing blow had done for her and the great bullnose of the 3,500-ton freighter had crashed through the ribs and bulkheads. The one pithy sentence of Captain KendaU summed all. "The ship is gone," he said; "women to the boats."

Kendall was hurt and in great pain, but he showed the pluck and decision of a naval officer. In the first minute of the disaster he ordered young Edward Bomford, the wireless operator, to flash the S. 0. S. call, the cry for help that every ship must heed. He ordered officers and stewards to collect as many passengers as could be found and hold them for the boats. He had nine life-boats overboard within ten minutes.

WIRELESS CALLS FOR HELP

The S. 0. S. call was ticked out by Edward Bomford, the junior wireless operator. Bomford had just come on duty to relieve Ronald Ferguson, when the Storstad rammed the Empress. Both young men were thrown to the deck. As they picked themselves up they heard the chorus of the disaster, the cries, groans and screams of injured and drowning passengers.

An officer came running to the wireless house with orders from Captain Kendall, but Bomford, at the key, didn't have to wait for orders. He began to caU the Marconi station at Father Point, and kept at it desperately until he had the ear of the Father Point operator.

Then young Bomford turned his wireless to search the river and gulf, and he hurled the news of the Empress' fate for 500 miles oceanward. Many steamships picked up the call, but they were hours away. They started for the position given, but long before they had made any progress the Empress and two-thirds of her ship's company were under fifteen fathoms of water. Fourteen minutes is too brief a time for much rescue work.

HUNDKEDS DROWN IN CABINS

Had there been time, hundreds who went down with the ship would have survived. A thousand men and women who had been asleep awoke too late to scramble to the decks. They were crushed or mangled by the bow of the Storstad, injured by splintered timbers or overwhelmed in the terrific rush of water.

It is probable that scores who were asleep were killed instantly, but hundreds perished while feebly struggling for doorways, or while trying for a footing on sloping decks. The terror and confusion of the few minutes, while the Empress staggered, listed and sank, can hardly be put in words. The survivors themselves could not describe those minutes adequately.

In the brief space of time between the shock of the collision and the sinking of the liner there was little chance for systematic marshaling of the passengers. Indeed, everything indicates that hundreds of those on the steamer probably never reached the decks.

NO TIME TO ROUSE PASSENGERS

The stewards did not have time to rouse the people from their berths. Those who heard the frenzied calls of the officers for the passengers to hurry on deck lost no time in obeying them, rushing up from their cabins in scanty attire. They piled into the boats, which were rapidly lowered, and were rowed away. Many who waited to dress were drowned.

The horror of the interval during which the Empress of Ireland was rapidly filling and the frightened throngs on board her were hurrying every effort to escape before she sank was added to by what seemed like an explosion, which quickly followed the ripping and tearing given the liner by the Storstad's bow. As Captain Kendall afterwards explained, this supposed explosion was in reality the pressure of air caused by the in-rushing water. The ship's heavy list as the water pouring in weighted her on the side she was struck, made the work of launching boats increasingly diflficult from moment to moment, and when she finally took her plunge to the bottom scores still left on her decks were carried down in the vortex, only a few being able to clear her sides and find support on pieces of wreckage.

IN THEIR NIGHT CLOTHES

Many passengers fortunate enough to get into the life-boats found themselves garbed only in their night clothes. No baggage was saved. The condition of the survivors was pitiable. Some had broken arms and legs, and all had suffered terribly. L. A. Gosselin, a prominent lawyer from Montreal, saved himself by clinging to a raft.

PICKED UP THE CAPTAIN

Ernest Hayes, an assistant purser, said that he leaped from the promenade deck a minute or two after the collision. He climbed into No. 3 life-boat, which, a few minutes later, picked up Captain Kendall.

J. W. Black and his wife, who live in Ottawa, jumped together before the ship sank. They got on deck too late to find places in a life-boat. They decided to jump and take their chances. Fortune was with them, for it sent wreckage to Mr. Black's hand, and he kept his wife above water until a life-boat reached them.

William Measures, of Montreal, a member of the Salvation Army band, jumped overboard and swam to a life-boat. A young Englishman said there was a terrific shock when the Storstad struck. He had time only to throw a dressing gown over his pajamas and to awaken two of his friends.

To pluckily leap from the deck of the sinking liner and swim around for nearly an hour in the river, and then to fall dead from exhaustion on the deck of the Eureka, was the fate of an unknown woman.

Fourteen minutes settled the whole affair. With the decks careening, the captain, officers and crew strove like fiends to release the boats. One after one, laden with a mass of humanity, sped away. The Storstad followed suit with as much ability, but the time was brief.

Boats there were a plenty, but time there was none.

When the listing increased and the nose of the ill-fated liner twisted skyward, panic seized upon the horde of persons, and once more a loud, prolonged burst of agony from several hundred throats vibrated through the fog.

LIFE-BOATS LAUNCHED IN RECORD TIME

It takes five minutes to launch boats during a drill in harbor, when everything is calm and collected and the crews are all at their proper stations. The tarpaulin covering has to be removed, the falls cleared away and carefully tendered, and the boat fended off as it goes down the side.

But no more unfavorable conditions could be imagined than those prevailing when the order "Stand by to abandon ship" rang out from the bridge. The ship was listing over at a terrifying rate. The seas were flooding her aft, and in addition to the list she was sinking stern first.

Men hurled from sleep by the shock of the collision had to hurry to their stations in the confusion that must have been inseparable from such an accident. Precious moments inevitably were lost in getting the boat crews to their post, and all the time the ship was going down. Once the crew were at their stations, the launching of the boats must have gone on with the precision of clock-work. It was all done in twelve minutes. That was remarkable discipline. That these nine boats were lowered successfully in the few minutes remaining before the ship made her final plunge is something that will be remembered forever.

THE EMPRESS GOES DOWN

While these frantic attempts at rescue were going on, the doomed ship was rapidly settling. Her decks were awash, and then, with a spasmodic heave, as if giant hands from below were pulling her down, the massive sea castle tilted to the bottom. Wreckage, spars and bobbing heads, and the few small boats trying to escape the vortex^ — ^with the slow heaving bulk of the collier in the background — alone marked the scene of the catastrophe.

SIR THOMAS SHAUGHNESSY, PRESIDENT OF CANADIAN PACIFIC, DEPLORES LOSS OF LIFE

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IR THOMAS SHAUGHNESSY, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, issued the following statement on the morning of the Empress accident :

"The catastrophe because of the great loss of life is the most serious in the history of the St. Lawrence route. Owing to the distance to the nearest telegraph or telephone station from the scene of the wreck there is unavoidable delay in obtaining official details, but we expect a report from Captain Kendall in the course of the afternoon.

"From the facts as we have them, it is apparent that about two o'clock this morning the Empress of Ireland when off Rimouski and stopped in a dense fog was rammed by the Norwegian collier Storstad in such a manner as to tear the ship from the middle to the screw, thus making the water-tight bulkheads with which she was provided useless. The vessel settled down in fourteen minutes.

"The accident occurred at a time when the passengers were in bed and the interval before the steamship went down was not sufficient to enable the officers to rouse the passengers and get them into the boats, of which there were sufficient to accommodate a very much larger number of people than those on board, including passengers and crew. That such an accident should be possible in the river St. Lawrence to a vessel of the class of the Empress of Ireland and with every possible precaution taken by the owners to insure the safety of the passengers and the vessel is deplorable.

"The saddest feature of the disaster is, of course, the great loss of life, and the heartfelt sympathy of everybody connected with the company goes out to the relatives and friends of all those who met death on the ill-fated steamship."

CHAPTER II Captain Kendall Blames the Storstad

(Statement of Captain Kendall, Commander op the Empress of Ireland, Made at the Coroner's Inquest at Rimouski)

SLIGHT FOG BANK — NEARNESS OF STORSTAD — SIGNAL GIVEN AND ANSWERED — SHOUTED TO COLLIER — SHIP BEGAN TO FILL — LIFE-BOATS OUT — DISTRESS SIGNALS — SHIP FOUND- ERED QUICKLY — CAPTAIN SHOT INTO THE SEA — RESCUED — WORK TO SAVE OTHERS — NO PANIC ABOARD

A FTER passing Rock Point gas buoy, I sighted the /-% steamship Storstad, it then being clear.

The Storstad was then about one point on my starboard bow. At that time I saw a sUght fog bank coming gradually from the land and knew it was going to pass between the Storstad and myself. The Storstad was about two miles away at that time. Then the fog came and the Storstad's lights disappeared. I rang full speed astern on my engines and stopped my ship.

At the same time I blew three short blasts on the steamer's whistle, meaning "1 am going full speed astern." The Storstad answered with the whistle, giving me one prolonged blast.

I then looked over the side of my ship into the water

30 CAPTAIN KENDALL BLAMES STORSTAD

and saw my ship was stopped. I stopped my engines and blew two long blasts, meaning ''my ship was under way, but stopped and has no way upon her.'*

He answered me again with one prolonged blast. The sound was then about four points upon my starboard bow.

SHOUTED TO COLLIER

It was still foggy. I looked out to where the sound came from. About two minutes afterward I saw his red and green lights. He would then be about one ship's length away from me. I shouted to him through the megaphone to go full speed astern, as I saw the danger of collision was inevitable; at the same time I put my engines full speed ahead, with my helm hard aport, with the object of avoiding, if possible, the shock. Almost at the same time he came right in and cut me do^Ti in a line between the funnels.

I shouted to the Storstad to keep full speed ahead to fill the hole he had made. He then backed away. The ship began to fill and listed over rapidly. When he struck me, I had stopped my engines. I then ran full speed ahead again when I saw the danger was so great, with the object of running her on shore to save passengers and ship. Almost immediately the engines stopped, the ship filling and going over all the time, on the starboard.

In the meantime I had given orders to have the life-boats launched. I rushed along the starboard side of the boat deck and threw all the grips out of numbers 1, 3, 5 and 7 boats; then I went back to the bridge again, where I saw the chief

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CAPTAIN KENDALL BLAMES STORSTAD 31

officer rushing along to the bridge. I told him to tell the wireless operator at once to send out distress signals. He told me that this had been done.