SS Evelyn, a steel-hulled, single-screw steamer, was laid down on 17 January 1912, by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, launched on 9 May 1912; and delivered to the A. H. Bull Steamship Lines on 11 June 1912.

In a dispatch dated 31 January 1942, the Chief of Naval Operations ordered that Evelyn and Carolyn "be given a preliminary conversion to AK (cargo ship) in the shortest possible time."

While this ruse de guerre had worked moderately well in World War I, it was at best a stop-gap measure adopted in the hope of ending a rash of sinkings of merchantmen in American coastal waters.

Given a main battery, machine guns and depth charge gear hidden in concealed positions, Asterion was placed in commission at the Portsmouth Navy Yard in early March 1942.

Each ship was to proceed independently under the guise of a tramp steamer, in the hope of luring a U-boat to the surface and destroying the submarine with gunfire before she realized what was happening.

Then, after luring her assailant, U-123, to the surface with her "tramp" steamer guise, Atik had fired on the U-boat, but succeeded only in mortally wounding an officer on the submarine's bridge before the German captain broke off the action and cleared the area to await nightfall and a second crack at the Q-ship.

Various contacts with friendly surface craft and aircraft on this patrol and the previous one led to awkward situations which required tact and ingenuity on the part of the commanding officer to preserve the Q-ship's cover story.

That cover story was maintained; officers in Headquarters, Eastern Sea Frontier, were so completely unaware of the nature of this ship's mission that they recorded her various dispatches in the Enemy Action Diary for 4, 10 and 14 April under her commercial name, SS Evelyn.

Operating off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on 14 April, Asterion rescued the 55 men of the crew of a British merchantman that had been torpedoed earlier—saving even the captain's dog.

Asterion's third cruise commenced on 4 May 1942, from New York, and she sailed between Key West and Norfolk, proceeding as an independently routed merchantman or as a straggler from a convoy.

The fourth cruise commenced on 7 June 1942, and, due to increased submarine activity in the Gulf of Mexico, the Q-ship set course for those dangerous waters.

Inspection after her sixth cruise raised considerable doubt as to her ability to remain afloat if hit by even a single torpedo because she had three large holds.

On 16 December 1943, the venerable auxiliary was ordered to proceed to Boston, Massachusetts, where she reported to the Commandant, 1st Naval District, for transfer to the United States Coast Guard.