The USSB allocated the ship, which had been fitted out with temporary troop accommodation in its cargo spaces, to the Navy which commissioned the ship on 7 July 1919 as USS Sol Navis with the Identification number 4031A.

After embarking 67 officers, 1,699 soldiers, one civilian and 100 Sailors for a total of 1,867 passengers on 16 September the ship sailed arriving at the Port of Embarkation's Bush Terminal[note 2] in Brooklyn on 26 September after a night at the quarantine anchorage off Staten Island.

[9] In April 1941 the line announced a number of its ships would be diverted, alternately, from the intercoastal routes to Manila, Hong Kong, Singapore, Penang and the Dutch East Indies to "assist in the movement of essential foreign commodities.” While on those voyages the ships would be under charter to American President Lines.

Harry Luckenbach was the second ship to be so diverted scheduled to leave San Pedro, California on 26 May 1941.

[11] Harry Luckenbach was in Convoy HX-229, assigned station #111, from New York City to the United Kingdom.

That station, leading the left column,[note 3] was considered exposed and the ship had to be recalled to the position when the master independently zig-zagged ahead of the convoy.

The ship was hit early in the morning of 17 March 1943 about 400 nmi (460 mi; 740 km) off of Cape Farewell, Greenland (50°38′N 34°46′W / 50.633°N 34.767°W / 50.633; -34.767) by torpedoes fired by German submarine U-91 midship on her starboard side in the machinery room.