The Sinking of the Empress of Ireland (Canada's Titanic)
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- Опубліковано 20 лип 2024
- On a foggy night on May 29, 1914, the Canadian liner Empress of Ireland was struck by a German cargo ship called the SS Storstad. In just 14 minutes, the Empress capsized and sank below the St. Lawrence River, killing more than 1,000 people.
Despite the huge loss of life, the tragedy was quickly overshadowed by the onset of World War I just two months later. Today, we explore what led to the Empress of Ireland sinking that night-and the legacy of an oft-forgotten disaster.
Introduction: 0:00
Early career: 1:25
Collision and sinking: 3:20
Rescue: 8:23
Trial and aftermath: 9:35
Wreck site: 11:05
Like most ship geeks, the Titanic was my gateway drug into the world of maritime disasters. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. I finally created this channel to explore the fascinating world of maritime history. Welcome aboard!
*Please note, I am simply a hobbyist and not a certified professional in this field. I use this channel to share my findings on topics that interest me.*
#documentary #shipwrecks #history
I still have a large suitcase that travelled aboard the RMS Empress of Ireland with my Great Grandparents when they returned home to Canada from their honeymoon in Europe on the July 26, 1912 sailing from Liverpool.
They took several photographs aboard the ship, which are in their photo album of the trip. I really like the one that looks out across the bow, westward bound in mid Atlantic, with numerous people visible on the deck enjoying the sunny weather in their clothes of various styles and levels of wealth. I wonder how many of them were immigrants on their way to start new lives here, and how they fared in the years ahead. 🇨🇦⚓
Wow! What a treasured family heirloom you have. I'm glad your great grandparents had the opportunity to sail on the Empress. Thank you for watching and for sharing your story. - Sam
Fantastic family connection! I published a book about the Empress in French 5 years ago and am now preparing en English-language edition. Could I contact you about this Empress of Ireland family connection?
Could u donate it to a museum so my children can see it?
@@SixstikaiStvdios Not even that, can you not just take some pics and upload them to imgur or something? Why not share those memories with the world!
That poor little girl having to be so brave in the face of such loss. My heart always sinks when I hear about so many children being lost. The loss of anyone is tragic, but it seems more so with children.
Don't look into the sinkings of the SS Arctic or Atlantic then. Trust me.
Both Titanic and Empress of Ireland inspired novels by Clive Cussler.
"Night Probe", is actually where I first heard of the Empress,and its story. It,and "Raise the Titanic" are both great reads.
😅 Almost EVERY known shipwreck is the focus of one cussler book or another.....while he tried to incorporate as much truth as possible, he also played hard and fast with the fictional to keep it adventurous
Read about every cussler book in print before 2008 while running a recompression chamber on commercial dive vessels all over the Gulf of Mexico for nk less than 10 different companies (no, your not suppossed to read while doing that and more than one diver got an extra 02 period but nobody hurt)
Few authors contribute as much to what our civilization knows about what the ocean has taken from us than Clive Cussler.
There was quite a mystery as to how the two ships came into collision. James Croall recounts a suggestion that makes sense to me: that as the Empress was settling onto her new course, intended to pass the Storstad starboard to starboard, she momentarily swung too far to starboard, displaying her port sidelight to the officers on the Storstad, and thus leading them to assume the Empress intended to pass port to port. Before the Empress had straightened up properly, the fog closed in. Nevertheless Toftenes was definitely at fault for altering course to starboard in the fog, which one should never do. He thought he was giving the Empress a wider margin of safety, when he was actually steering directly into her.
Gotta love fog am I right? Especially when it rolls in at the worst possible time such as that. -.-
This is a great example of why captain Morgan has no place out at sea.... Especially if there is fog
Oopsy ... My bad dog
Thank you for telling this tragic story it must of been terrifying for those poor people.
They is a museum at Point-au-Pere close to Rimouski. If you go to the church at Luceville, they put memorial for the Empress and it is the closest point on land from her. Along the old road between Rimouski to Lucille, there are multiple stones with names of peoples buried from the Empress. It's touching!
Those eerie, deep sounds for the collision gave me goosebumps. Well done!
Yea I just heard that, that was very eerie indeed
Great channel.
And your voiceovers are just perfect.
Thank you for the support! - Sam
I don’t know if you’ve seen the Last Voyage of the Empress of Ireland, but it’s really interesting. It showed that the Empress hadn’t stopped and was indeed moving, there wouldn’t have been as much damage if the ship was stationary, and the watertight doors were not closed. It also established that Kendall did what someone else here mentioned, namely the Empress turned starboard, closer to the Storstad to avoid wasting time. Anderson saw this and thought the Empress was doing port to port. However the Empress then turned to port to continue it’s heading, which would have saved more time than if he hadn’t done that. So Kendall does share more of the blame then he was willing to admit.
Thank you Ship Geek. Your production quality is truly of top standards, and I always enjoy a sincere lack of 'fluff' that made television so tedious before I became resident to the ether-net. Before anything else, I need to comment on what I will describe as the most haunting sequence of sepia or black/white cine film I have ever seen, in that of Florence Barbour with Robert Crellin. Though in HD here, it may as well been 4K from 1914. It was as though someone had made a period drama. Not the jumpy, inconsistent quality of motion I am used to seeing. A realism that made the rest of this documentary bone chillingly real. I didn't realise there were examples in existence of this quality. The fact Florence is so aware and continues to converse though under the spotlight of the moment, also gives a glimpse into the world of children at that time. Childhood was a fleeting moment it seems. The person in that footage is more of a miniature woman, then that of a girl. Saying that, she had just survived a 14 minute night sinking in the Atlantic Ocean. That has to age you quickly. She had lost her mother and sister. I hope she went on to live a successful and happy life.
I had never heard of the sisters Ireland and Britain in Canada, but after adding them to an ever growing list of stories from the period of 1900-1918, I have certainly gained a hardness to these times. I'm of the mind that the world went through a period of idiots. It was bad enough that the Great War between 1914-1918 was enough to show this if it stood alone, by killing an entire generation of men, but I find it not surprising at all these days, given that the care for life during these times was truly awful. It was like man had first discovered electricity, and then summarily electrocuted ourselves. This of course, was also true, since the first electric ceiling lights were suspended by bare current passing wire. Not enough has been written about just how often disasters of these scales were occurring. People perished through the egos and ignorant, during a period of time when men were measuring their manhood against each other. Biggest, fastest death traps is what some of these vessels were, in the hands of crews who almost in every tale were sleeping at some point around disaster. When I thought ships were controlled around the clock.
Thank you so much for educating me on this new topic that I have only recently heard of. I must admit that I am a diehard Titanic fanatic Ik so much about that might fine vessel but had no idea that Canada had its own equivalent to the titanic. This story is made even more tragic by the fact that the story of her sinking was drowned out by the coming of the First World War just two months after it happened. Xx
I wish these stories were longer. I’m glad you’re back though. So many stories out there yet to be told.
The only thing that would have saved the Empress would have been if Kendall had ordered the watertight doors closed when the ship entered the fog, which was just a few minutes before the collision. Theoretically, if the doors had been closed, the ship would have still lost power, but it probably would have stayed afloat longer, if not entirely. There likely would have been an immediate list, but that would likely have evened out as the boiler rooms filled up.
Because the doors on the Empress had to be closed manually by crank levers, the ship would have been doomed even if Kendall had ordered them closed after the collision, as the loss of electricity, the sudden list and the surge of water would have made closing those doors damn near impossible, as from what I've read the crew only got one door closed after the collision.
Looking forward to Empress of Britain vid 🇬🇧
You're back!
Indeed I am-thank you for stopping by! - Sam
Thank you, running out of content to watch . Most impressive , everyone seems to be so focused on Titanic or in the region of the Great Lakes , the Edmund Fitzgerald . Good to see other stories being told. 🤗
Much appreciated, Diana - thank you for watching! If you have recommendations for what you'd like me to cover in future videos, feel free to share. - Sam
Everyone: a Lusitania sunk the fastest!
Empress Of Ireland: 😐
I work for Canadian Pacific Railroad as a track gang crew member… Same company today as in 1905….
You have a real gift for this, Ship Geek. Thank you for sharing it.
Thank you for the support! - Sam
Great to see you again, great video.JDS
Underrated
I'm a relatively new subber here. I am really enjoying your content! Thanks for making it in a very factual yet sensitive way.
Thank you, Anna!
Empress of Ireland's sister ship, Empress of Britain, served as a troop transport during the war and completed another decade of commercial service before she was scrapped in 1928.
Great video!😊
I was sent gere from Maritime Horrors' channel. This is great content man. Keep up the great work! Liked & subbed 👍😀👍
Glad I found ur channel, great content
Thank you, and welcome aboard! - Sam
This ship disaster needs to be made into a movie. I have a book on famous sunken ships and one of them is Empress of Ireland. I have seen photos of what the rooms, stations, and passengers and crew was like on the ship.
Fun Fact: Between 1906 and 1914, the Empress of Ireland transported just over 110,000 passengers to Canada, the majority of them immigrants to Canada and the United States.
Today, over 1 MILLION Canadians and roughly 100,000 Americans can trace their roots back to this one ship.
The return of the king
Interesting story with excellent narration, I have subscribed.
Thank you very much! Welcome aboard. - Sam
Same here!
I live in Canada, and my great grandfather was in titanic’s Canada
Great video!
Thank you!
Very well done.
Brilliant video
My Grandfather, came from England, on the Empress of Ireland's last voyage, to bring our family name to a new land. I am here to learn the account of her sinking...
Wow!! I was almost going to delete my subscription 'cause I thought you'd closed up shop. Sure glad I didn't!
Great video about a little known.... even here in Canada... but very significant event. Welcome back!!
Thank you, and welcome back to you as well! Glad you stuck around, and I'm glad you enjoyed the video. - Sam
Another superb production from Ship Geek. These videos are far more entertaining and interesting than anything coming out of Hollywood these days. Ah, if only our population included more ship geeks.
After the inquiry, the shape of ships bows was changed, from the straight up and down we see on ships of that era to a angled bow. This was aimed at stopping the the type of penetration you see on the liner.
Even before you got to the board of inquiry, I knew it was the fault of the Storstad. That first officer knew full well that there was a passenger ship in the fog and didn’t bother the confer with the captain about the passing agreement with the EoI, feeling that he had full rights to just barrel on at “a moderate speed” because he was “entitled to”. He should have gotten prison time.
Apparently 840 passengers died on the Empress compared to 817 on the Titanic and 786 on the Lusitania - both better-known disasters (though the Titanic lost hundreds of crew too)
Thank you for keeping this video respectful to those who lost their lives. I started another video on another channel but it was too graphic and sensationalized and I couldn't stomach it. But I wanted to know what happened after it sank. So again, thank you.
Thank you!
As a huge geek of naval tragedies i thouroughly enjoy ur content. Plz make more and lemme kno if u need research help
Aight here we go!!!!
Thanks for your hard work making this interesting video. Do you have any Great Lakes ship wreck videos?
Yes! Check out my video on the 1913 storm and the Morrell sinking. Also working on one about the Mataafa.
@@StunningHistory Oh cool I will. Have a great day!
Ah. The dangers of pulling out....
For one of these stories, even just ONE.. I'd love to hear that the cruise line responsible was fined out of existence, and their ships were sold to more responsible parties.
Sometimes the captains or crews of these ships are absolutely to blame.. but most of the time it's the company at fault, and they never seem to suffer more than a slap on the wrist
Подозрительно напоминает катастрофу с теплоходом "Адмирал Нахимов" в 1986 году...😮
Would the Empress have stayed afloat longer if the Storstad didn't reverse and held her station in the 'wound?' The Storstad could have pushed the Empress to the shore and many more lives could have been saved. I know I am like a ref on the sidelines of the game, but one just wonders.
They did try to keep the ships locked together but the current of the St Lawrence River caused the ships to separate. That river has a very strong current
That is 😔
Have you considered doing one on the Halifax explosion?
Yes!
Yeah, this didn't have to happen. In some ways though, I look at the sinking of the Empress of Ireland as a harbinger to the eventual fall of CP: their mass losses of ships in both World Wars including the massive and beautiful Empress of Britain, and then the beginning of the Jet Age, against which only a handful of the former shipping lines managed to survive. What did we learn from this tragic accident? Never leave an inexperienced person in charge of a serious situation. I am currently writing a series of multiple stories about the great liners, which I have chosen to name The Steamship Series (inspired by my fondest childhood memory, The Railway Series :). The more and more I listen and relisten to the stories of Canadian Pacific, the more tempted I am to include in this series the story of the Empress of Ireland.
Hi
Hi there!
Wonder if this ship would not have reversed out after collision same with years later Andoria Italian liner. State when two German ships Collision in world war 2 the captain stayed locked together
They did try to keep the ships locked together. Captain Kendall of the Empress was shouting through a microphone to Captain Anderson of the Storstad to keep the ships together but the current of the St. Lawrence River pushed the Storstad out and away from the Empress. The current of that river is pretty strong.
👍
Wasn't just Canadians, as the fare was cheaper than travelling to the US directly. Many traveled to Canada, then crossed the border to the US.
probably took them 13 minutes to give a warning to the passengers and 1 minute to make it to the upper deck
Please don't call the Ireland Canada's titanic it's just simply the Ireland it does not involve the titanic in any way so please show respect to those who died and just call it "the story of the Empress of Ireland ".
Man, how deep is the St Lawrence River? A river 140 feet deep... who would've thunk it ? 🤔 20foot I can see, but 140 F N feet !!!
Such an undersubscribed channel... there must be something i dont know about it. Why it gets hundreds of thousands of views on its videos but only has like 14k subs..
In these maritime disasters involving passenger liners did you see a pattern...? Both the captains were away when tragedy struck the Titanic' and now the 'Empress...' Is it mere coincidence or fate?
More enthusiastic than geekdom.
so many somewhat famous ships sunk by the germans
The captain fell from the bridge, sounds like Concordia syndrome
I honestly don't think so. The bridge wing things are exposed to the outside of the ship and I'm pretty sure a similar thing happened to the captain of the Lusitania.
Wont be long until diving is made illegal anywhere in Canadian waters as they declare one wreck after abother off limits becaue its a grave...but sites of massecres of indigenous Peoples remain open to the public and tourist attractions
My friends brothers sisters cousins father,captain the empress of Ireland
I like how Ship Geek's logo is shamelessly stolen from 'The Ship' - and the font, too.
I am Ship Geek 😄; I just decided to change my channel name a couple of months ago because I’ll eventually talk about other events beyond maritime history.
Thank you for sticking up for me, though! 🙏
@@StunningHistory lol did I? Ok I guess.
If the coal ship had not reversed, would the Empress stayed afloat longer?
They did try to keep the ships locked together, but the current of the St Lawrence caused the two ships to separate. That river has a very strong current. A lot of divers have died when trying to reach the wreck because of the strong current. They get swept away and die
Somewhere in this mess of ads is a video about a shipwreck
Thx for the heads up. I won't bother. The greed of YT or whoever is dong this is off the scale ...making things unwatchable.
I think its called 'killing the golden goose...'
If only the captain had just kept going.
Ship physics don’t just work like that buddy
@@mexicanofr7762 They probably meant that if the EOI hadn't slowed down there might not have been any collision. Impossible to say if it's so, of course.
your logo, it looks like a certain part of the female anatomy
Awesome to see you post!
Thank you for the warm welcome back. It's great to be back! - Sam
Underrated