The Royal Navy captured her on her first naval voyage, and the UK Ministry of War Transport renamed her Empire Garden.

Yard number 587 was launched in September 1919, and completed in October 1920 as Gedania, which is a Latinisation of the name of the city of Danzig (now Gdańsk).

[1] Yard number 588 was launched in April 1920, and completed in January 1921 as Vistula, named after the river on which Danzig is built.

[5] She had a single screw, driven by a quadruple expansion engine that was rated at 404 NHP,[5] and gave her a speed of 10+1⁄4 knots (19 km/h).

[5] In 1919, before Gedania and Vistula were completed, Standard Oil transferred them to Baltisch-Amerikanische Petroleum Import Gesellschaft (BAPIG), its subsidiary in the Free City of Danzig.

[8] By 1933, Waried owned Gedania; her registration had been transferred to Hamburg; and her code letters had been changed to RJGH.

[17][18] Before leaving St-Nazaire, Gedania loaded stores, including: 48 torpedoes with fitted warheads; 48 torpedo pistols, detonators and primers; 200 gallons of lubricating oil and a similar amount of torpedo fuel; 500 shells and 500 cordite charges for 150 mm guns; 1,600 rounds of fixed 105 mm ammunition; 1,000 rounds of fixed 75 mm ammunition; 2,000 rounds of fixed 20 mm ammunition; a large cargo of diesel and bunker oil; engineers tools, including portable welding equipment, and a new 8-inch (200 mm) lathe; a wireless telegraph (WT), including direction finding; two portable WT sets for use ashore; canned provisions, including butter, sausages and fruit; and fresh bacon, frozen meat and potatoes.

She headed south in the direction of Bilbao; then turned west along the north coast of Spain; past Corunna; and out of the Bay of Biscay.

On 4 June 1941, the ocean boarding vessel HMS Marsdale sighted her; chased her for two hours; and captured her and her crew at position 44°N 27°W / 44°N 27°W / 44; -27.

[20] Gedania's codebooks were thrown overboard before the British captured her,[15] and her crew detonated scuttling charges that were meant to sink her, but she remained afloat.

A boarding party found some of her cryptographic material that had not been destroyed, and soon repaired her enough for her to proceed under her own steam.

[11] The UK Naval Intelligence Division surmised that Gedania's mission was to supply a group of submarines referred to as the "Southern U-boats", and also German surface craft.

[20] The Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) took ownership of Gedania, renamed her Empire Garden, and registered her in London.

[24][25] While Empire Garden was en route to the UK, the South Georgia Company, a subsidiary of Christian Salvesen, bought her from the Ministry of Transport.

She was converted into a supply ship for the company's Southern Ocean whaling operation, based in Leith Harbour, South Georgia.

[29] After returning from the 1959–1960 whaling season, Southern Garden was laid up off Southend, and in July 1960 she was sold to the British Iron & Steel Corporation for scrap.