The engine, equipped with two steam turbines double reduction unit and two propellers, allowed her to reach a speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph), and vented in two funnels.

Conte Biancamano was launched 23 April 1925, and made her maiden voyage on 20 November 1925 from Genoa to New York, sailing, as expected, on a direct route to North America.

[3] Embarking 5,600 army troops and sailors, on 2 November 1942 Hermitage departed New York with her skipper acting as convoy commodore.

Six days later the North African invasion began, and Hermitage on 10–25 November debarked her passengers at Casablanca to participate in the momentous campaign.

In the next year Hermitage made three similar cruises through the South Pacific, with battle-bound marines, soldiers and sailors, civilians, and Chinese and Indian refugees among her diversified passengers.

V-E Day, 8 May 1945, found Hermitage part of the celebration in Le Havre harbor as Allied ships greeted the end of 6 years of war with a cacophony of bells, whistles and sirens screaming through air illuminated by hundreds of signal flares and rockets.

On Thursday, 22 November 1945 the Hermitage sailed from Marseilles Harbor with 5,799 aboard with units from the 12th Armored Division and the 629th Tank Destroyer Battalion.

Departing New York 12 December, the well-traveled transport sailed to Nagoya, Japan, to embark some 6,000 homeward-bound veterans on 19 January 1946 and return to Seattle 4 February 1946.

With her structural and interior refit and modernization completed, she became the premiere ocean liner of the renewed Italian merchant fleet.

Her interior refit was made possible through the collaboration of painters such as Massimo Campigli, Mario Sironi, and Roberto Crippa, as well as decorative design work by Gustavo Pulitzer, Paolo De Poli and Giò Ponti.

Art work including sculptures made by Marcello Mascherini were placed on the ceiling of the grand hall depicting the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece.