With their career often spanning over decades, ocean liners gather stories much like people do. Add to this their exotic journeys and the simmering political cauldron which is their golden age, and it comes as no surprise that their stories rival the tall tales of famous adventurers. The first article in this series focused on the most iconic vessels, those still burning bright in collective memory with their cosmopolitan flair and tragic ending. This part is about the oddballs – the eccentric, the mysterious, the unexpected.

1. MV Awa Maru

This unassuming, run-of-the-mill liner left behind scarcely any photos for historians but plenty of legends for adventurers and freebooters. In the monstrous records of the war, the unjust demise of 2,003 passengers and crew was a mere number in someone’s chart, but the rumor of 40 tons of gold and 150,000 carats of diamonds in the ship’s hull spread around at lightning speed, sparking one of the largest treasure hunts in history.

At 11,000 gross register tons, the Awa Maru was just another workhorse to leave the Nagasaki dockyards in 1943. By that time, war was already raging with full force in the Pacific, and the Mitsubishi shipyard received an order from the Japanese Navy to complete the ship to wartime specifications. She operated between Japan and Singapore as a relief vessel for the Red Cross, evacuating civilians and prisoners of war.

On 28 March 1945, Awa Maru stood at the port of Singapore, ready for departure. On board, she carried seamen of the merchant marine, diplomats, civilians, and army personnel. In the holds lay a few tons of rice, nickel, and rubber – trivial local commodities, albeit valuable for Japan’s war effort. But when night fell, sources say, the army cleared port staff from the dock, tossing out the rice and loading contraband worth $5 billion in today’s money – all of it gold, gemstones, and priceless cultural artefacts. Many now suspect that the fossilized remains of the Peking Man, looted by the Japanese from occupied Manchuria, were among the plunder on Awa Maru.

Urban legend to some and confirmed fact to others, this story comes from what historians and dreamers call Yamashita’s gold. Supporters of the story claim that, after conquering British Malaya with one forceful swoop, General Tomoyuki Yamashita exported staggering amounts of valuables to secret hideouts in the Philippines, some of which were discovered by treasure hunters in the 1970s.

As rumor has it, part of this treasure left Singapore on the Awa Maru, bound for Japan under a guarantee of safe passage by the Allies. A few days later, the humanitarian convoy blipped on the radar of USS Queenfish, whose captain mistook the Awa Maru for a warship, ordering immediate fire. She sank so fast only one person escaped with his life.

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In 1979, the international press announced that China had spent $100 million to reach the wreck in the Taiwan Strait and had recovered 158 bodies to return to Japan. Behind the gentlemanly gesture to a former enemy hid the real reason for the operation – to salvage Yamashita’s fabled gold. As it turned out, the PRC had bought a massive floating crane from Japan and deployed 100 divers and 600 auxiliary personnel on what became history’s costliest treasure hunt. Abut aside from the human remains, the operation retrieved nothing.

2. MS Aramis

With two short square funnels and bold Mediterranean interiors, the French liner MS Aramis came across as a sassy eccentric. In 1931, the Messageries Maritimes had had enough of that dusty old design of British liners, so reminiscent of foggy Southampton that one got the chills just looking at it. With a bold fusion of Art Deco and classical revival in mind, the French designers studied the ancient Minoan ruins on Crete. They returned to Marseille with a unique vision that paid homage to the now-iconic pillars and friezes at the Knossos Palace.

After a few years on the passenger route from Marseille to Kobe, the Aramis was drafted by the French navy at Saigon as an armed cruiser on patrol in the South China Sea. When France capitulated to the Axis in WWII, the Aramis returned to Saigon, lingering at the pier as a floating barracks, until seized by Japan in 1942. Under a new identity as Teia Maru, she carried troops and POWs between Japan and the occupied lands in Southeast Asia, until she crossed paths with the USS Redfish on 17 August 1944. Having sunk the Japanese aircraft carrier Unryu a few days earlier, the Redfish was out for another kill. A swift torpedo-attack in the dead of night led to a tragedy, plunging the former French beauty to the bottom of the South China Sea with 2,665 souls trapped on board.

3. SS Conte Rosso

The first liner built after WWI, Conte Rosso was a true harbinger of the Roaring Twenties, with sleek outlines, resplendent interiors, and a Mediterranean flair that captured the imagination of the wealthiest travelers. The interior design surpassed even the most extravagant expectations – a marble and stucco-laden celebration of Old-World opulence. And with that passion for balmy summer evenings that only Italians have, the flamboyant Conte offered outdoor dining, reminiscent of a panoramic terrace on Capri.

After a spell on the Transatlantic route, she was redirected to the Far East, from Trieste to Shanghai. The Chinese maritime capital and commercial boomtown was a fashionable destination in the 1930s, so trendy and bursting with luxury that many dubbed it “Paris of the East”. Dinner parties, jazz clubs, and adventurous outings – the symbol of modern China was a fitting conclusion to a voyage on Italy’s most dazzling vessel. This route, however, had a darker side – under the magnificent salons and smoking rooms of the Conte’s first class, steerage burst with Jewish refugees, having sold their last possessions to escape the Nazi death-machine.

On 24 May 1941, requisitioned as a troopship by the Regia Marina, Conte Rosso was passing Sicily en route to North Africa, directly into HMS Upholder’s line of sight. In the ensuing torpedo attack, the British submarine sank the Italian liner with almost 1,300 casualties.

4. RMS Empress of Canada

There are many bombastic and over-the-top ship names out there, true, but Canadian Pacific’s “Empresses” were worthy of a royal title. They were not the largest or the most luxurious, but their silhouettes and unusual (for the time) white hulls exuded the quiet elegance of nobility. In 1920, the 199-meter-long Empress of Canada slid off the slipway, becoming the largest liner in the Pacific. Powered by six steam turbines, she plied the regular route from Vancouver to Tokyo and Hong Kong, gaining a mild celebrity status thanks to Captain Hailey’s pet cat.

The good times ended in 1939, when the Royal Canadian Navy converted her into a troopship. Shortly after midnight on 14 March 1943, the RMS Empress of Canada made her way down the West African coast with 1,800 people on board, mostly Italian POWs. With the grim irony of war, it was an Italian submarine that spotted her that night. The Marconi-class Leonardo da Vinci wasted little time launching its torpedoes at the Empress, sinking her with 392 souls. Just two months later, the Leonardo da Vinci itself fell prey to British warships in the Atlantic.

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