[3][4] In 1912 and 1913 Irvine's Shipbuilding & Dry Docks Co Ltd built a pair of sister ships, with consecutive yard numbers, at its shipyard on the River Tees in West Hartlepool, County Durham, England, for the Nederlandsch-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij (NASM), known in English as "Holland America Line".

[7] She had a single screw, driven by a four-cylinder quadruple-expansion steam engine built by Richardsons Westgarth & Company of Hartlepool.

[11] On 26 March 1916 the Russian schooner Ekonom foundered in the English Channel off St Michael's Mount, Cornwall.

[12] On 20 March 1918 President Woodrow Wilson issued Proclamation 1436, authorising the seizure under angary of Dutch ships in US ports.

The next day, the United States Customs Service seized Westerdijk,[3] probably at NASM's pier in Hoboken, New Jersey.

On 9 April she left New York carrying a cargo of United States Army general stores for the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

[3] On 30 October 1928, Westerdijk was one of the ships whose wireless telegraphist reported the position of the airship Graf Zeppelin on its maiden transatlantic flight.

Westerdijk sighted Graf Zeppelin at 12:15 hrs GMT at position 48°47′N 22°03′W / 48.783°N 22.050°W / 48.783; -22.050, about 560 nautical miles (1,040 km) west of Ireland, headed southeast.