The remarkable story of how one ship — doomed by war — intersected lives and crossed into history.

Completed in 1913 for Canadian Pacific, the Empress of Asia plied the oceans for nearly thirty years. Built for peacetime travel, she saw wartime service as an armed merchant cruiser and troopship before Japanese dive bombers destroyed her off Singapore in 1942.

Through the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression, she brought continents and people together, delivering mail and multi-million-dollar consignments of silk. As a luxurious passenger liner, she was a “Greyhound of the Pacific,” encountering enormous storms and smashing transpacific speed records. From stokehold to bridge, steerage to first-class staterooms, she steamed with a kaleidoscope of lives, including courageous and recalcitrant crew, immigrants and refugees seeking a better life or relief from disaster, drug smugglers and weapons dealers, and the idle and not-so idle rich.

This is the dramatic story of how one ship — and the lives of her passengers and crew — intersected during a tumultuous period of world history, culminating in her destruction off Singapore at the height of the Second World War.

DAN BLACK has written and edited hundreds of articles on Canada's military, past and present. He is the former editor of Legion Magazine and the co-author of Old Enough to Fight: Canada's Boy Soldiers in the First World War and Too Young to Die: Canada's Boy Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen in the Second World War, with John Boileau. Dan lives outside of Ottawa.

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James P. Delgado, President of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, is a marine archaeologist who has investigated shipwrecks around the world. With Clive Cussler, he hosted "The Sea Hunters," a National Geographic International TV series that played for five seasons to millions of viewers in 172 countries. Delgado is the author or editor of thirty books, including the international best-sellers Lost Warships: An Archaeological Tour of War at Sea and Across the Top of the World: The Quest for the Northwest Passage. When not travelling the world for INA in quest of lost ships, he lives on the Waterfront in Steveston, British Columbia - a village founded by Japanese fishermen.

James P. Delgado's profile page

With Oceans of Fate, Dan Black once again shows his immense talent for finding overlooked and under-reported stories and sharing them — and the people at the forefront of each narrative — in a way that fully engages readers and leaves them astonished by the depth of research.

Brian Jeffrey Street, author of the Parachute Ward

There’s a deeply haunting quality to Oceans of Fate. It’s a heart-wrenching yet uplifting tale that has us eavesdrop upon those who spoke for thousands of private lives, all associated with the Empress of Asia, a Canadian ocean liner that embraced the pride, frolic, and brutal maelstrom of the first half of the 20th century. The painstaking research that went into the book unearthed diaries, journals, and personal letters of crew and passengers. The ship itself is emblematic of the last great ocean liners that also found purpose in war. Oceans of Fate will reacquaint you with major historical events and have you linger on the “still, sad music of humanity.” Reading it and getting to know the characters within is a humbling experience.

Peter Johnson, author of Quarantined: Life and Death at William Head Station, 1872–1959

Dan Black’s writing, focused so often on the impact of war on individuals, is known for its compassion and clarity. In Oceans of Fate, a sweeping and meticulously researched study of the life of the steamship Empress of Asia and the men and women whose lives were bound up with it, those qualities stand out once again. From the ship’s birth in a Scottish shipyard to its death from Japanese bombing in the Second World War, the reader is presented with a colourful, intricate, and absorbing panorama that relates not only what happened to the ship and the people it touched but also describes the tumultuous age in which it, and they, existed. The professional passion for detail and accuracy in Black’s writing deserves ringing applause; even more so does the heartfelt care he shows for the men and women touched by events of the ship’s life. This is historical writing at its finest.

Victor Suthren, past director general, Canadian War Museum

Dan Black’s book Oceans of Fate is beautifully written. It transforms the steel and wood of a hull and deck into flesh and bone, weaving together the legacy of a ship that was not simply sailing the oceans carrying passengers and cargo but experiencing the tension of wars and the ultimate savagery of warfare. With deep research, the book presents a tapestry of captains and crews, of renown passengers, an Olympic medalist, people lost at sea, and soldiers answering the call to arms — many never to return home. His ability to bring alive the life and times of the Empress of Asia speaks to the quality of Black’s work and writing style. As an educator, Oceans of Fate offers exemplars of industrialization and technology, conflict and travel, all while imagining ourselves standing on the deck of the Empress of Asia. I can only hope that Dan Black continues to chronicle the other ships that were a part of the Empress class. We are fortunate to have such a gifted writer in our midst.

A. Blake Seward, M.S.M., creator of the Lest We Forget Project

In Oceans of Fate Dan Black has produced a most welcome addition to the largely unknown story of one of Canada’s grand passenger liners — part of a once great fleet that no longer exists. The story of the Empress of Asia is a masterly portrait of the ship, its crew, and passengers. Black’s skillful writing makes thousands of people who passed through the Empress during its 30-year existence come alive, and the narrative is enhanced by maps and period photographs. Oceans of Fate is a thoroughly researched and well-written book about a little-known aspect of Canadian history.

Colonel John Boileau (ret’d), author of The Lucky and Lost: The Lives of Titanic’s Children

Dan Black’s detailed chronicle of the transpacific liner Empress of Asia is a captivating, insightful, and carefully researched story, not just of the ship, but of the people who knew the Asia well, in peace and war: officers and crew, passengers, military personnel, and many more. Their personal stories and memories bring the Asia— life on board, her times and adventures — vividly to life, including her tragic loss near Singapore early in the Second World War. This book will be a great addition to the maritime story of Canada and the World Wars.

Robert D. Turner, FRCGS, LL.D, curator emeritus, Royal BC Museum