While Orizaba was in her Ward Line service, American poet Hart Crane leapt to his death from the rear deck of the liner off Florida in April 1932.

[7] Orizaba—named after the town of Orizaba, Veracruz, Mexico—was laid down for the Ward Line by William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company of Philadelphia and launched in February 1917.

[8] Assigned to the Atlantic Transport Service, Orizaba carried over 15,000 troops in six convoy trips to France before the end of World War I.

Detached from that duty on 10 January 1919, she joined the Cruiser and Transport Force at Brest, and in nine voyages returned over 31,700 troops to the United States.

The captain of Orizaba immediately stopped the ship and launched four lifeboats that searched in vain for two hours, but no trace of the poet was ever found.

Before he jumped, Crane had been drinking and, the night before, had been the victim of violence after an unwanted pick-up attempt of a crewman ended with a severe beating.

[20] In April 1934, American actress Katharine Hepburn sailed from New York on Orizaba, eventually ending up in Mérida, Yucatán.

After the divorce was finalized she and her travel companion, Laura Harding, planned to spend a week in Havana and return to New York on the Ward Line ship Morro Castle.

[21] Other notable passengers on Orizaba in the 1930s included Ecuadorean diplomat Gonzalo Zaldumbide and Cuban president Fulgencio Batista.

[22] In February 1939, Orizaba carried Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista back to Havana after a two-week goodwill visit to Mexico.

[30] In mid-1939, Orizaba was chartered to United States Lines as one of five ships added to increase what was perceived as a slow rate of return of US citizens fleeing war-torn Europe.

[32] After completing evacuation service, the ship was laid up in New York in the summer of 1940, and subsequently purchased by the Maritime Commission on behalf of the Army on 27 February 1941.

[8] The Atlantic Conference was held on 9 August 1941 in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, between Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt.

Besides the "official" agenda, Churchill hoped to obtain considerable assistance from the US, but the American President had his political hands tied.

On 5 September the President assured the British leader that six vessels would be provided to carry twenty thousand troops and would be escorted by the American Navy.

The chief of Naval Operations ordered troop ships divisions seventeen and nineteen, on 26 September 1941, to prepare their vessels for approximately six months at sea.

[35] Wakekfield (AP-21), with 6,000 men embarked, and five other transports Mount Vernon (AP-22), West Point (AP-23), Orizaba (AP-24), Leonard Wood (AP-25) and Joseph T. Dickman (AP-26) got underway as Convoy WS12-X on 10 November 1941.

Sailing via Iceland, she steamed to England, Cape Town, Recife, and Norfolk, Virginia, from which she got underway for Bermuda and Puerto Rico.

On 11 July, she sustained slight damage in an enemy air attack and retired to Algeria the next day with casualties and prisoners on board.

She returned to Sicily at the end of the month to discharge troops and cargo at Palermo and then, on the night of 1 August, weighed anchor and stood out for home.

After calls at Samoa, Nouméa, Brisbane, and Milne Bay, she returned to the west coast in March 1944, only to leave again for another central Pacific run.

Back at San Francisco in June, she underwent repairs; completed a run to the Marshalls and Marianas; and then sailed north to the Aleutians.

[8] From Ulithi, Orizaba sailed east, passed through the Panama Canal again, and, as the battle for Okinawa raged, arrived at Tampa, Florida.

[5] The ship then loaded American military stores from US bases in Brazil and sailed for New York, arriving on 10 November 1945, with plans to repatriate wounded Brazilian soldiers who had been recuperating in the US.

[37] On 31 July 1947, a day after sailing from Rio de Janeiro for Europe, oil spilled on the ship's boilers, causing an engine-room fire that quickly spread through the first class cabins and killed 27.