72nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, CEF disembarking from the "Empress of Asia" at the CPR pier, 25 January, 1919 NOTE: There is no mention in the regimental history about the 72nd Battalion taking the Empress of Asia. The history states that they took the train from Halifax to Vancouver and arrived on 20 June, 1919 where they were demobilized. 1919 - Asia Land Settlement Committee Hundreds of World War I (and possibly some 72nd Bn soldiers) veterans returning home on the Empress of Asia decided to settle together in a co-operative farming community upon their return home to British Columbia. After meetings with both the Provincial and Federal Governments, a 14,000 acre lot of land in the Courtney Valley is settled by 120 veterans and their families. The RMS Empress of Asia was an ocean liner built in 1912–1913 by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland for Canadian Pacific Steamships. As well as being a passenger liner in peacetime, Empress of Asia served as an armed merchant cruiser and a troopship in wartime. During the First World War, the Empress of Asia was converted into an auxiliary cruiser at Hong Kong. She was armed with eight 4.7-inch (12 cm) guns and Royal Navy officers assumed command. Among her peacetime crew only those in the Royal Naval Reserve were retained. She was deployed in Asia, in the Middle East and in the Atlantic. In late 1914, the Empress of Asia was among the cruisers tasked with hunting the German light cruiser SMS Emden in the Indian Ocean east of Ceylon. The Empress of Asia transported wounded German prisoners from the sunken Emden to Columbo. On 9 September 1918, the Empress of Asia set sail from Hoboken, NJ bound for Liverpool carrying US troops. She arrived safely on 21 September 1918. In 1919, the Empress of Asia returned to Vancouver carrying the 72nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces and the men disembarked from the ship at the CPR pier. VANCOUVER ARCHIVES ITEM DETAILS PAGES ATTACHED