The steamer was on the receiving end of what journalist and author Robert St. John called the "first real broadcast of history", originated by early radio pioneer Reginald Fessenden from Brant Rock in Massachusetts.

A Belgian passenger's leg was broken when he was thrown into a wall, and a crewman on watch in the crow's nest was sent tumbling to the deck 40 feet (12 m) below with only minor injuries.

[28][Note 2] International Mercantile Marine submitted a bid for a ten-year contract for Kroonland and Finland to carry U.S. mail between New York and San Francisco after the opening of the Panama Canal.

During her slow passage to New York, Kroonland's cabin passengers drafted a resolution honoring Captain Kreibohm and the crew for their actions during the rescue, and raised $700 for the benefit of the Volturno survivors.

Satterlee had traveled on the liner the previous May to visit the spa town of Bad Nauheim in Hesse;[50] O'Reilly had been on the November 1904 trip in which Kroonland had been reported as sunk.

After a body was found in the basement of Crippen's North London residence, Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Walter Dew sought the couple for murder charges.

Dreiser recounted the gloomy mood of Kroonland's passengers after hearing the news of Titanic's sinking, observing that the "terror of the sea had come swiftly and directly home to all".

[60] Sailing from New York on 15 October for Gibraltar, Naples, and Piraeus,[6] Kroonland became what IMM called the first large, American-flagged steamer "to engage in trade with the far corners of the Mediterranean".

[69] The tour was designed as a showcase for American companies hoping to expand into South America,[70] and Kroonland circumnavigated that continent, traveling over 15,000 nautical miles (28,000 km) in 82 days.

[68] During the voyage, the liner docked at various ports where businessmen or trade representatives, like the Babson Statistical Organization,[71] made sales pitches and showed films of factories to potential customers aboard Kroonland.

[79] In early October, another landslide in the Gaillard Cut[80]—this one in excess of 1,000,000 cubic yards (760,000 m3) of mud and dirt[81]—closed the canal, and it was expected that it might remain closed for as long as ten months.

After Kroonland arrived at the canal's western end at Balboa, the two liners exchanged passengers—including former First Lady Helen Taft[Note 5] and her daughter, Helen—by rail across the isthmus.

Her sister ship Finland was transferred to a New York – London route almost immediately after the canal's closure, but Kroonland was "trapped" on the west side of the continent.

[89] In January 1917, a jumble sale held in the saloon on Kroonland raised £73 15s 11d for The Times Fund, for the benefit of the British Red Cross and the Order of St.

[90] While returning from Liverpool in early February 1917, passengers and crew on Kroonland witnessed the German U-boat UC-46 sink the Dutch ship Gamma off the Irish coast.

Kroonland was less than 5 nautical miles (9.3 km) away, and was prepared to rescue the crew of the sunken ship, but stopped when the German submarine took Gamma's lifeboat in tow.

[87] Because Germany had resumed unrestricted submarine warfare again on 1 February, Kroonland was laid up for almost two months at the American Line piers in New York, along with sister ship Finland and three other vessels.

Although the U-boat, apparently also taken by surprise, reversed her screws and tried to turn to avoid a collision, she lightly struck the liner's hull and scraped along her side before diving out of sight.

[114] Gordon Van Kleeck, a private in Company F of the U.S. 51st Pioneer Infantry, one of the units aboard Kroonland on this trip, recorded his day-to-day activities in a journal.

[113] After embarking 3,334 soldiers, Kroonland began her next crossing on 30 August when she sailed from New York with Susquehanna, Harrisburg and Plattsburg to join the Newport News contingent of Duca d'Aosta, Caserta, and America.

[123] Another passenger on board was Sarah Wilmer, an American YWCA front-line worker who had become lost in the Argonne forest and gassed when a German shell exploded nearby.

[129] Kroonland returned to Saint-Nazaire in May and loaded Major General Joseph E. Kuhn and some 3,000 men of his U.S. 79th Infantry Division, which included the 304th Engineer Regiment, and departed France on 18 May.

[139] Heavy seas in another storm in October 1921 broke Kroonland's port propeller shaft 350 nautical miles (650 km) past Sandy Hook.

[140] Another eastbound crossing four months later was marked by almost continuous gales with winds up to 90 miles per hour (140 km/h); the liner arrived at Plymouth covered in ice and snow.

[144][Note 12] During an August eastbound crossing, Kroonland stood by for two hours after receiving a report of an explosion and fire on RMS Adriatic, some 70 nautical miles (130 km) behind.

[146] In October, U.S. Federal judge Learned Hand issued a restraining order preventing the Prohibition-related seizure of alcohol aboard Kroonland, Finland, and St. Paul.

[139] Four of the United States' seven delegates to the 19th Inter-Parliamentary Union Convention in Stockholm—Congressmen Alben W. Barkley and Edwin B. Brooks, and Senators Thomas J. Walsh and William B. McKinley—returned on Kroonland in September 1921.

[153] In preparation for her announced return to the Panama Pacific Line in October 1923, more refrigeration and cool air space were added for transporting Southern California agricultural products.

[160] Even though press accounts reported as late as March 1925 that Kroonland had sailed her last on the route,[161] she continued carrying passengers and cargo through at least June 1925 because of booming business.

[171] On the same voyage, University of Southern California president Rufus B. von KleinSmid boarded Kroonland at Panama after attending the Pan-American Scientific Congress in Lima.