Originally built as SS Queensborough Park for the Canadian Merchant Navy, the vessel was transferred to the British Ministry of War Transport before completion.

The vessel served in Atlantic convoys for the remainder of the Second World War and was transferred to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in 1947.

She was subsequently used for sea trials of the Westland WS-51 Dragonfly helicopter and played the role of the German tanker Tacoma in the 1956 film The Battle of the River Plate.

She was completed as a refrigerated Victualling Stores Issuing Ship (VSIS) and placed under management of George Nisbet & Company of Glasgow.

[2] In 1955 she starred in the film The Battle of the River Plate, playing the German freighter Tacoma, which took the crew off the cruiser Admiral Graf Spee before she was scuttled off Montevideo.