"Duchess of York"
Sailing on the River Mersey

Watching the ever-changing parade of liners and merchant vessels sailing the mile-wide waters of the River Mersey became a passion to a boy whose home, in Wallasey, Cheshire, overlooked the river. Not only were the names of ships faithfully recorded but many were instantly named: Cunarders bound for New York, the elegant ships of the Union Castle Line on their way to South Africa and numerous others heading for world-wide ports-of-call.

Each week could be seen ships of the CPR Line sailing to and from Liverpool and Canada, one of these being the one shown in the picture above. With their twin yellow funnels it was difficult to distinguish the Duchess of York from her sister Duchesses, Bedford, Atholl and Richmond. That they were all built in 1928 to the same blueprints, each with almost identical gross tonnages of just over 20,000, also helped to make recognition the more difficult.

Moving now to the 21st of January 1943. On this day my Regiment, the North Irish Horse, set sail from Liverpool aboard the HMT Duchess of York bound for North Africa and to war. Sadly, later that year on July 11th, she was hit by a bomb during an attack on the convoy by the Luftwaffe. She sank the following day, everyone on board, except for 34, being rescued by the escorting warships.

The York was the second of the Duchesses lost due to enemy action. HMT Duchess of Atholl was torpedoed by U-178 on October 10th, 1942, east of Ascension Island. The two sister ships survived the war but both were to be renamed. Richmond became the Empress of Canada in 1947 and, the next year, Bedford became the Empress of France.

Alas, the days of the great liners are long gone. They, together with steam locomotives, remain only as memories for the dwindling few.

Picture courtesy of Rob Betz from his:
Lost Liners: Honoring the Golden Age of Ocean Travel

For a definitive work on the Duchesses and the many ships owned by Canadian Pacific Railways, go to Maureen Venzi's excellent site The Role of the CPR Ships in WW II.

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