Assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service, West Mead loaded 6,865 tons of flour, departed the Pacific Northwest on 15 November 1918 (four days after the Armistice with Germany had brought World War I to an end on 11 November 1918), transited the Panama Canal, and stopped at Balboa in the Panama Canal Zone.

In 1927, the Shipping Board sold Westmead to the Babcock Steamship Company of New York City, which returned her to service and renamed her SS Willanglo.

In response to the need caused by German submarine activity in the North Atlantic Ocean against Allied convoy routes early in World War II, the British government acquired a number of former U.S.

She was sold to the British Ministry of War Transport in 1940 and renamed SS Empire Springbuck, and operated under the management of W. A. Souter and Company of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.

Empire Springbuck was on the second leg of a voyage from Cuba to Leith, Scotland, via Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, when the German submarine U-81 torpedoed and sank her off Cape Farewell, Greenland, on 9 September 1941.