RMS Mooltan was an ocean liner and Royal Mail Ship of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O).

When completed in 1923 she had only her quadruple-expansion engines, but in 1929 turbo generators and electric propulsion motors were added alongside them to increase her speed.

[citation needed] She left the Port of Tilbury, sailed via Suez Canal and called at Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Melbourne before reaching Sydney, Australia on 21 December 1923.

[citation needed] In 1929 Mooltan's engines were supplemented with British Thomson-Houston exhaust-driven turbo generators powering electric propulsion motors.

[1] Her naval service was divided between the South Atlantic Station (October 1939 – April 1940 and June – July 1940) and the Freetown Escort Force (May 1940 and August 1940 – January 1941).

[citation needed] On 31 July 1940 she was in the Western Approaches en route from Plymouth to Freetown when a German reconnaissance aircraft attacked her, but she survived intact.

[6] She carried US Army troops from Britain to land at Arzew, about 15 miles (24 kilometres) east of Oran[9] in French Algeria.

[9] Mooltan sailed to the landing fleet's rendezvous in the Firth of Clyde,[9] where more US troops embarked including the 439th Signal Battalion.

[9] The convoy was not attacked, but Mooltan used her exposed position to give her improvised gun crews plenty of firing practice.

[9] At 0800 hrs Mooltan entered the Gulf of Arzew and dropped anchor, and Royal Navy landing craft immediately took her US troops ashore to "Z" Beach.

Most of the outward traffic was Ministry of Transport emigration work, carrying "Ten Pound Poms" to Australia under an assisted passage scheme established and run by the Australian government.

On 23 January 1954 P&O sold Mooltan for £150,000 to the British Iron & Steel Corporation and she was taken to Metal Industries Ltd at Faslane in Scotland, where she was broken up.