ROYAL SHIP

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 12 May 1939, Page 5

ROYAL SHIP

CREW WITNESS CINEMA SHOW HER MAJESTY’S INVITATION GUNNERY EXERCISES BY ESCORTING CRUISERS fU.P.A. — by Electric Telegraph—Copyright] (Received 12th May, 9.0 a.m.) LONDON, 11th May. Specially invited by the Queen, stewards, stokers and firemen crowded the main dining-room of the Empress of Australia last evening for a cinema show which included two Walt Disney cartoons and Gordon Harker s "Return of the Frog.” Some wore civilian clothes and others their working kit. Their Majesties, in the afternoon, watched the escorting cruisers showing off their gunnery efficiency. H.M.3. Southampton put up a smoke and shell cloud, which the cruiser’s anti-aircraft gunners peppered, white puffs marking hits.

HEAVY FOG ENCOUNTERED (Received 12th May, 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, 10th May. The Empress of Australia encountered heavy fog. Her speed was reduced to a maximum of 10 knots in good patches. The vessel was frequently hove-to.

The Empress of Australia, in which Their Majesties are travelling to Canada, has an unusually interesting history. Designed and named Tirpitz by the Hamburk-Amerika Company, she was launched at Stettin in 1913 for the line’s New York service. At the outbreak of the war her fitting-out was stopped and the work was not resumed until 1917, when special accommodation was provided for the Kaiser. Hopes were then held that she could be used as an Imperial yacht from which the captured British Navy could be reviewed.

After the Armistice the ship was completed and sent to Immingham, Lincolnshire, and in 1921 she was purchased by Canadian Pacific Steamships, Limited, and renamed Empress of China. Changed from a coal to an oilburner, she was placed on the transpacific service in 1922 as the Empress of Australia. In the following year she saved nearly 3000 lives from the great earthquake at Yokohama.

In 1926, the ship received a complete overhaul and was fitted with new machinery which gave a speed of 19 knots, an increase of nearly three knots. A year later she was transferred to the North Atlantic service out of Southampton. From that port she carried the then Prince of Wales to the diamond jubilee celebrations in ~ —ada. She has since been used n* intervals for round-the-world and shorter cruises and recently carried troops to Palestine.