The company chose the same propulsion system for Strathnaver and Strathaird, but the "Straths" were slightly larger ships, their turbo-electric equipment was much more powerful[1] and they were about 3 knots (5.6 km/h) faster than Viceroy of India.

Strathaird made two convoy voyages taking troops from Australasia to the Middle East Theatre of the Second World War and then went to Liverpool for a refit.

This was interrupted in June 1940 when Strathaird was ordered to take part in Operation Aerial to evacuate British and Allied personnel from western France.

[5] At the beginning of the 1960s, Strathnaver and Strathaird were almost three decades old and no longer reliable enough for mail and passenger service, so P&O replaced both ships with SS Canberra.

When the ship called at Fremantle Harbour on 6 November, Federal authorities boarded her, told Kisch that he would be excluded from Australia under the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, and placed him in the custody of Strathaird's master, Captain Carter.

On 12 November, Strathaird reached Melbourne, where a barrister for the Communist International Labor Defense organisation boarded her and served Captain Carter with a writ of habeas corpus to allow Kisch ashore to make his case for entry to the country.

Australian authorities still did not allow Kisch ashore, so on 13 November, as Strathaird was leaving Melbourne, he leapt from the deck and landed on Station Pier, breaking his right leg.

Victoria Police detained him and put him back aboard, but as Strathaird continued to Sydney Harbour Kisch's supporters took his case to the High Court of Australia, which ruled his exclusion from the country to be invalid.

On 16 November, Strathaird reached Sydney Harbour, where Federal authorities tried to use the Immigration Restriction Act dictation test to exclude him.

NSW police took Kisch into custody but released him on bail and, after further legal process, he remained in Australia speaking to public meetings until March 1935.