Empress of Scotland

RMS Empress of Japan was an ocean liner built in 1929–1930 by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland for Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP). This ship was the second of two CP vessels to be named Empress of Japan – regularly traversed the trans-Pacific route between the west coast of Canada and the Far East until 1942.

In 1942, she was renamed RMS Empress of Scotland – the second of two CP vessels to be named Empress of Scotland. In 1957, the Hamburg Atlantic Line purchased the ship and re-named her TS Hanseatic.

Empress of Japan carried out her sea trial successfully in May 1930, achieving a top speed of 23 knots; and on 8 June 1930, she was delivered to Vancouver for service on the trans-Pacific route. In this period, she was the fastest ocean liner on the Pacific.

She would continue sailing the Vancouver–Yokohama–Kobe–Shanghai–Hong Kong route for the rest of the decade. Amongst her celebrity passengers were a number of American baseball all-stars, including Babe Ruth, who sailed aboard Empress of Japan in October 1934 en route to Japan.

The outbreak of war in Europe caused Empress of Japan to be re-fitted for wartime service. Following the Japanese attacks on the Empire outposts in the Far East in December 1941, the name of the ship needed to be changed. In 1942, she was renamed Empress of Scotland. Following the end of World War II, Empress of Scotland was needed to meet the newly developing demands for trans-Atlantic passenger service. In the period between 1948 and 1950, she was rebuilt at Fairfield in Glasgow. These modifications were necessary to better meet weather conditions on the colder Atlantic route. This extensive re-fitting included a radical reconfiguration of her cabins from the original four classes to just two – first and tourist.[

The Canadian Pacific Empress of Scotland completed her last trans-Atlantic crossing in 1957; and she was temporarily laid up in Belfast until being sold