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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

With impeccable research and the eye of a screenwriter, Dan Black breathes life back into the Empress of Asia during her 30-year voyage through a gilded and tumultuous era bookended by her service in two world wars. Oceans of Fate profiles a cast of characters who sailed her across the Pacific as crew and passengers, and it reveals the “upstairs, downstairs” hierarchy on board – rich travellers mixing with ship’s officers above; the less fortunate packed in steerage below, where Chinese coolies stoked the ship’s furnaces with coal. The story is spiced with tales of stowaways, drug smugglers, desperate refugees and passengers washed overboard. Most dramatic of all is Black’s telling of the ship’s harrowing end, when it is set on fire and sunk by Japanese dive bombers while transporting troops into besieged Singapore – his narrative of the attack and the plight of survivors is worthy of a movie. Dan Black has once again brilliantly illuminated a lesser-known piece of Canadian history.

Black has done a meticulous job of unearthing diaries, journals, and personal letters and photographs of both crews and passengers, as well as plowing through dozens of newspapers, essays, and journal articles. The book’s appendices include casualty lists and a detailed timeline. If it’s facts and names you’re after, you’ll find them here aplenty. The result is a highly informative chronicle.

Black did an enormous amount of work bringing the Asia back to life and this work is a loving tribute to an era, a ship, and the people who trod her decks.

Dan Black is the former editor of Legion Magazine and author or co-author of three previous books, including Harry Livingstone’s Forgotten Men: Canadians and the Chinese Labour Corps in the First World War. He lives near Ottawa.

Foreword by James P. Delgado

Preface

Part One: Ocean Bound

• 1 Heater Boys and Holder- Ons
• 2 Dancing Like a Hurricane
• 3 Stripped for War
• 4 Guns and Shuttlecocks
• 5 Atlantic and Pacific

Part Two: Between Wars

• 6 Boys to Sea
• 7 Salt of the Sea
• 8 Rising Twenties
• 9 Collapsing Thirties
• 10 Sea upon Sky
• 11 Ship to Shore
• 12 Smugglers and Stowaways

Part Three: The Second World War

• 13 The “Accidental” Bombing
• 14 Ark of War
• 15 Last in Line, First in Trouble
• 16 Voyage of Doom
• 17 Escape from Singapore
• 18 Homeward
• Epilogue: Signing Off

Acknowledgements

Appendix 1: Empress of Asia Casualty Lists, 1914–42

Appendix 2: Timeline

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Image Credits

Index

About the Author