SS Melita was one of a pair of transatlantic steam ocean liners that were built in the United Kingdom, launched in 1917 and operated by Canadian Pacific until 1935.

In 1913 Hamburg America Line ordered a pair of liners from Barclay, Curle & Co. During that war Canadian Pacific (CP) bought the two partly built ships and had them completed[1] to its specification.

[2] Barclay, Curle & Co built Melita in Glasgow as yard number 517 and launched her on 24 April 1917.

A pair of four-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines drove her port and starboard screws.

[8] After the Armistice of 11 November 1918 she was engaged in transporting American and Canadian troops back from France.

In 1932 Melita made her final transatlantic crossing, which was from Liverpool, Belfast and Greenock to Halifax, Nova Scotia and St John.

[15] In the early hours of 21 October 1925 Melita was in port in Antwerp when her Chief Officer, Thomas Towers, shot dead her Master, AH Clews, as the latter slept in his cabin.

Towers also shot the Assistant Chief Engineer, David Gilmour, in the head, but without killing him.

[16] The next day Melita reached Southampton, where a police launch put a surgeon aboard to treat Gilmour and Holliday, and Towers was removed under arrest.

[19] This clause was breached when the pair were passed to Flotte Riuniti Cosulich-Lloyd Sabaudo, who had them refitted as troop ships for the Italian Government.

[21] On 5 July 1940 a British aircraft torpedoed Melita in the Mediterranean, but she stayed afloat and reached port in Tobruk.