Since 2002 divers and salvagers have recovered the remains of three German assault guns from her wreck, and at least one of them has been restored to working order.

She had a Gutehoffnungshütte [de] three-cylinder triple-expansion engine that was rated at 337 NHP[4] and gave her a speed of 10.5 knots (19.4 km/h).

The turbine drove the same shaft as the piston engine, via double-reduction gearing and a Föttinger fluid coupling.

Convoy 4 DS left Dakar in Senegal on 25 November 1939 and reached Casablanca in Morocco on 3 December.

One source asserts that Saint André was returned to HAPAG in 1940,[2] but another states that she remained in French hands until Germany and Italy occupied Vichy France in November 1942.

[11] By September 1943[2] the German Government had assigned her management to Mittelmeer-Reederei,[7] a government-controlled company that operated merchant ships in the Mediterranean theatre of the war.

On 23 November Santa Fé left Constanța in Romania for Sevastopol in Crimea carrying 12 Sturmgeschütz III assault guns, two Jagdpanzers, and 1,278 tons of other matériel including artillery shells, aerial bombs and casks of petrol.

[7] At 1000 hrs on 23 November the Soviet Dekabrist-class submarine D-4 Revolutsioner torpedoed Santa Fé south of Yevpatoria in Kalamita Bay,[12] causing an explosion in her forward hold followed by a fire.

[12] On 15 December 1943 the German auxiliary submarine hunter UJ-102 suffered an explosion and sank in Kalamita Bay, killing all 53 of her crew.

[14] Russian Black Sea Fleet divers have since recovered a third StuG III assault gun from the wreck.

In February 2020 it was reported that the Russian Navy's priority now is to make the wreck safe by detonating remaining unexploded ordnance in her cargo.