Sad tale of crippled liner that refused to sink The way we were

IN OCTOBER 1940, a famous liner slipped her moorings in Cape Town and sailed away, bound for Liverpool in war-ravaged England. This was the return leg of a trooping voyage from Britain to Suez, and she carried 643 passengers and crew, and a cargo of 600 tons of sugar and general stores.

Still recognisable, despite her wartime paint and spartan accommodation, the three-funnel Canadian Pacific vessel, Empress of Britain, was one of the great merchant liners of the 1930s, measuring 220m from stem to stern and displacing more than 42 000 tons.

She had sailed the transatlantic route between Halifax and England prior to her war service and had carried King George VI and Queen Elizabeth home after a goodwill trip to North America in June 1939.

In Cape Town, where the warning “Don’t talk about ships and shipping” was a familiar wartime slogan, her presence went almost unnoticed.

Travelling unescorted through dangerous waters, her master Charles Sapsworth put his faith in his ship’s manoeuvrability and 24-knot top speed. All went well until October 26, when she was seen by a patrolling German aircraft off the west coast of Ireland.

Oberleutnant Bernhard Jope, 26, a career officer from Leipzig, spotted the Empress taking evasive action during his first operational flight in charge of a Focke-Wulf 200C, a make-shift bomber converted from a Condor airliner.

Ignoring the ship’s fierce anti-aircraft fire, Jope approached from astern and bombed the ship from a height of 150m, starting a serious blaze. He returned twice more and scored a second direct strike, receiving a hit on one of his four engines in the process.

Lifeboats were launched as Jope prepared to limp home, convinced that the ship, which was burning from end to end, was about to sink. She did not, however. Manned by a skeleton crew, she was taken in tow by the Polish destroyer Burza and later by the naval tugs Marauder and Thames.

Meanwhile, 598 passengers and crew were rescued by naval vessels and taken to Britain, including an 11-month-old baby, Neville Hart, who was tied to the back of a sailor who slid down a 20m rope into a lifeboat. His parents and older siblings were also saved.

The crippled liner inched towards safety for two agonising days before receiving her death blow. Several U-boats were stalking her, and she was eventually sunk by torpedoes from U-32 commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Hans Jenisch, who had 48 hours to enjoy his victory before his submarine was sunk by HMS Harvester and HMS Highlander. Jenisch and 33 crew members spent the rest of the war in captivity.

The Empress of Britain – the beautiful ship that had graced the seaways since 1931 – turned out to be the largest merchant vessel to be sunk by enemy action during World War II.