Film of her voyage from Colombo to Gibraltar is held by the Cinema Museum in London (Ref HMO206)[3][4] Taken up from trade as a troopship, Oronsay took part in the Norwegian Campaign, including Operation Alphabet, the secret evacuation of Narvik on 7 June 1940.

During an air-raid, a German bomb landed on the ship's bridge, killing several people, destroying the chart, steering and wireless rooms and breaking the captain's leg.

[6] Taking on survivors from RMS Lancastria which had sunk nearby, Captain Norman Savage steered the ship home with the aid of a pocket compass, a sextant and a sketch map.

On 8 October 1940, Oronsay, while part of a convoy from the Clyde to Egypt carrying troops, was bombed and damaged by Focke-Wulf Fw 200 aircraft of I Staffel, Kampfgeschwader 40, Luftwaffe at a position 70 miles off Bloody Foreland, County Donegal Ireland.

[15] 26 survivors, including the ship's surgeon James McIlroy (the Antarctic explorer), were picked up by the Vichy French aviso Dumont d'Urville, and were interned at Dakar.