However, her then-sister, originally named Columbus, was handed over to British government and then sold to the White Star Line after the war as part of reparations in 1920 and renamed Homeric by her new owners.

She measured 32,581 gross register tons, was 750 feet (230 m) long with 1,750 cabins for luxury, first, second and tourist class passengers.

“She had been chartered for a number of years by Cooks Travel Agency in New York and cruised into West Indian waters about every two weeks with occasional trips around South America and Africa.

In 1929, the liner was given a refit to modernise the vessel and was remodelled in the style of her younger, larger and faster running mates.

Her passengers and crew, 576 crewmembers, including boys, stevedores and nurses, were taken aboard Tuscaloosa as rescued seamen, not as prisoners of war as they would have been had the British picked them up.

On 11 December 1941, in a speech before the German Reichstag announcing his decision to declare war on the United States, Adolf Hitler described the presence of Tuscaloosa at the scuttling of the Columbus as a hostile act against the German nation, insisting that the American cruiser had forced the liner "into the hands of British warships".