In her career of almost three decades she was registered in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands and passed through the hands of at least eight different owners and operators, including several notable transatlantic shipping lines and the Royal Navy.

[3] Although designed as an ocean liner, in the First World War she was completed as a troop ship with an incomplete superstructure, only one funnel and only one mast.

On 26 October Harland & Wolff delivered her to the IMM's British and North Atlantic Steam Navigation Company.

[1] In August 1920 Regina arrived at Harland & Wolff's Belfast yard for completion as an ocean liner.

Her upper promenade deck, second funnel and second mast were added and berths for 2,300 passengers: 600 cabin-class and 1,700 third class.

On 16 March 1922 began her first voyage for Leyland Line from Liverpool to Portland, Maine via Halifax, Nova Scotia.

[3] Her first Red Star Line voyage began on 10 January 1930 from Antwerp to New York via Le Havre and Southampton.

[16] On 31 August 1940 Westernland and Pennland left Liverpool under escort[15] as part of the task force for the capture of Dakar.

Westernland carried the Free French General Charles de Gaulle[17] and reached Freetown in Sierra Leone on 20 September.

She called at Takoradi on the Gold Coast and continued via Cape Town to Durban, where she arrived on 15 November.

She spent most of the next 10 months as a troopship in the Indian Ocean, visiting Mombasa, Bombay, Suez, Colombo, Aden, Port Sudan, Massawa, Singapore, Fremantle and Sydney.

In October 1946 the South Georgia Company bought her, intended to have her converted into a whaling factory ship, and contracted Christian Salvesen to manage her.