[2] In August 1917 the Arvonian was requisitioned by the Royal Navy and converted into Q-ship, designed to decoy U-boats into attacking before revealing her concealed weaponry.

[1] On 27 November 1917 she was handed over to the United States Navy by the Admiralty "for war purposes", and commissioned as USS Arvonian the same day.

At 20:45 she was south of Kinsale, when she was struck on the port side by a torpedo[1] fired by SM U-61, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Victor Dieckmann.

[3] Hanrahan ordered his men to battle stations and sent away the "panic party," a group of sailors who played the role of a crew precipitously abandoning their sinking vessel.

She came under Russian control after the occupation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union in June 1940,[2] and was soon transferred to the state-controlled Latvian Shipping Company.