The ship served in the Second World War and is distinguished for her rôle in Operation Pedestal to relieve the siege of Malta in August 1942.

Both ships were initially owned by Union Cold Storage, a ship-owning company controlled by Blue Star Line.

After France surrendered to Germany in June 1940 the Port of London became too dangerous, so instead the ship used Liverpool or sometimes Avonmouth or Newport, Wales.

The few exceptions were mostly in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and sometimes outbound convoys from the UK from which she would either detach in mid-Atlantic or continue as far as Freetown in Sierra Leone.

There the harbour master of Sousse in Vichy French Tunisia boarded the ship, declared her unseaworthy and ordered her to be detained and enter port.

[6] Eventually Malta sent Spitfires to escort Brisbane Star the 200 miles to Valletta, where she and her cargo safely reached the Grand Harbour on 14 August.

[5] Brisbane Star stayed in Malta for almost four months, while her bow received temporary repairs good enough to return to deep sea service.

She then passed through the Suez Canal, called at Aden on 20 December, and spent Christmas 1942 and New Year 1943 heading south through the Indian Ocean.

A week later she left and joined Convoy MKF 11, which was en route from Bône in French Algeria to the Firth of Clyde.

[9] In 1943 Blue Star transferred her ownership from Union Cold Storage to Frederick Leyland and Co.[1] The repairs were accompanied by alterations that considerably increased the ship's tonnage and deepened her draught by 9 feet 4 inches (2.84 m).

Her final voyage of the war was from Norfolk, Virginia via the Panama Canal to Pearl Harbor, where she arrived on 29 August, three days before the Surrender of Japan.