Assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS), Walter A. Luckenbach sailed from Seattle on 13 June 1918, but an unsuccessful series of trials forced her to put into the Mare Island Navy Yard at Vallejo, California, for further work and repairs.

After a stop at Gibraltar, Walter A. Luckenbach arrived in Marseilles on 14 November 1918, three days after the armistice ending World War I was signed, discharged her cargo, and loaded ballast for the return voyage.

Mardin arrived at Bremen, West Germany, early in 1957 to load cargo, but was not allowed to leave port because of unpaid repair bills.

After a lengthy period in custody, she attempted to escape on a stormy, dark night later that year, slipping away from her moorings unannounced, showing no lights, using no tugboat assistance, and with no harbor pilot aboard.

She proceeded at full speed down the Weser River, trying to reach international waters in the North Sea before West German authorities could stop her.

They caught her just before she got beyond the three-nautical-mile (5.6 km) limit of West German territorial waters, boarded her while she was still underway, arrested her master on her bridge, and forced her to return to Bremen.