Two General Electric steam turbo generators each having a rating of 6,600 kilowatts at 4,000 volts supplied two synchronous-induction type motors each directly connected to its shaft.

[15] In June 1937 the United States Congress withdrew all maritime mail subsidies, which by then included a total of $450,000 per year for Panama Pacific's three liners.

[17][18][19] The Commission had the ships extensively refurbished and each was fireproofed to comply with Federal safety regulations,[20] which had been revised as a result of the fire in 1934 that destroyed the liner Morro Castle.

[1] On 6 September 1938 Emmet McCormack, co-founder of Moore-McCormack Lines, declared The South American trade, in so far as the United States is concerned, has been touched only at its surface.

With this ship [i.e. SS Virginia] and her two sister liners in service the United States will be making a new bid for its proper place in the South American field.

The next day Moore-McCormack contracted to operate California, Virginia, Pennsylvania and 10 cargo ships between the USA and South America[20] as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy.

Moore-McCormack renamed the three passenger liners Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and assigned them to the fleet of its American Republics Lines subsidiary.

[3] In April 1940 Brazil made a record run from Buenos Aires to New York in 14 days and 12 hours, achieving speeds of up to 18.96 knots (35.11 km/h).

[3] On 13 September 1940 Brazil sailed from Buenos Aires to New York with exiled Lithuanian composer Vytautas Bacevicius, aged 35, on the passenger list.

On 28 September 1941 Brazil was leaving Buenos Aires when she accidentally struck a Spanish-owned freighter, the 12,595 gross register tons (GRT) turbine steamship Cabo de Buena Esperanza.

[3] On the morning of 6 December 1941 Brazil sailed from New York for South America carrying 316 passengers and a record amount of mail, between 8,000 and 9,000 sacks.

[3] As blackout precautions Brazil's crew sealed and blacked out her portholes and painted her interior lights blue and purple.

[3] On 10 December Brazil arrived to make her scheduled call in Barbados, and British intelligence officers boarded her and removed the five Japanese.

[3][7][23] On 19 March 1942 she sailed from Charleston, South Carolina carrying 4,000 United States Army troops via the Cape of Good Hope[24] to Karachi, British India, where they arrived on 12 May.

[3] On 16 November 1942 Brazil left Oran, French Algeria carrying 44 Kriegsmarine prisoners of war: four officers and 40 ratings[3] from German submarine U-595.

608 Squadron RAF had attacked and damaged the U-boat on 14 November and the crew had scuttled her close to shore near Ténès, about 150 miles (240 km) east of Oran.

[3] On 22 October she sailed from Staten Island, New York carrying the 290th Infantry Regiment and the 258th Engineer Combat Battalion, reaching Swansea, Wales on 1 November.

In January 1946 the ship departed San Francisco for transit of the Atlantic and stops at Liverpool, LeHavre and Southampton destined for New York.

[3] She still had her cramped and spartan troopship accommodation, but on 12 June the Maritime Commission issued invitations to bid to convert Brazil back into a civilian ocean liner.

[3] On 4 August she completed her last voyage before reconversion, arriving at North River with 531 passengers from Le Havre; Southampton, England and Cobh, Ireland.

[3] On 13 August 1946 Brazil entered the Atlantic Basin Iron Works of New York for conversion to civilian service at a quoted $3,944,000 and completion within 200 days.

[3] After her refit Brazil's first class library was dedicated in memory of William Binder, Jr; a former Moore-McCormack employee who was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

[3] On 30 November 1957 the United States Federal Maritime Board approved Brazil's withdrawal from service, to be replaced by a new and faster Brasil[3] already under construction.

American fighter ace and Medal of Honor recipient, Pappy Boyington, returning from Burma after serving in the AVG (Flying Tigers), sailed from Karachi to New York in July 1942.

[3] James Farley, President of the Coca-Cola Export Corporation and former United States Postmaster General, sailed in Brazil in April 1951.