[3] Abosso was a motor ship, with two eight-cylinder two-stroke single-acting marine diesel engines driving twin screws and a combined rating of 1,660 NHP.

By the standards of her era Abosso was a small ocean liner, but she was the largest ship in Elder Dempster's fleet.

[9][10] On 27 June 1939 in dense fog 22 nautical miles (41 km) off Ushant in France, Abosso was involved in a collision with the 815 GRT British coaster Yewforest.

In the Second World War Abosso was converted into a Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship, and 20 DEMS gunners were added to her regular crew.

On 24 May 1941 a Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft attacked Abosso, but the ship survived with only slight damage.

[3] On 8 October 1942[6] Abosso left Cape Town, South Africa for Liverpool carrying 210 passengers: 149 military and 61 civilians, including 44 internees, among them the German-born and Jewish author Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, 10 women with children and two or three British distressed seamen[11] (the official term for abandoned seamen away from home without a ship for various reasons).

[4] A commander of the Dutch submariners, Luitenant ter zee der 1e klasse Henry Coumou, objected beforehand that this was an unreasonable risk to take, but British authorities overruled him.

[4] At 22:13 on Thursday 29 October 1942 Abosso was in the Atlantic about 589 nautical miles (1,091 km) north of the Azores[5] when German submarine U-575, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Günther Heydemann, fired a spread of four torpedoes at her.

[4] As Abosso settled in the water, she temporarily righted herself, her crew got her emergency generator working, and her floodlights were switched on to help the evacuation.

[6] This was Convoy KMS-2, which was sailing from the UK to the Mediterranean for Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of Vichy French North Africa.

[4] HMS Bideford, part of Operation Torch, stopped to pick up the survivors only after permission was given by the admiralty in London by radio communication.

A total of 362 people had died,[4] including Abosso's Master, Reginald Tate and another Merchant Navy captain, Edward Davies.

The Second World War part of the Tower Hill Memorial in the City of London lists those who were members of her Merchant Navy crew.

[13] The Brookwood Memorial in Surrey lists those who were UK or Commonwealth military personnel, such as the newly qualified RAF and Fleet Air Arm pilots.