Built in 1909 for Matson Navigation Company as SS Wilhelmina, she sailed from the West Coast of the United States to Hawaii until 1917.

Under the Matson flag, Wilhelmina conducted regular runs between San Francisco, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii, carrying passengers and cargo between 1910 and 1917.

Wilhelmina was diverted to "special duty" and made her first voyage to France soon afterwards, departing New York with a general cargo on 1 February and returning on 26 March.

Shortly after 20:00 on 14 August, while Wilhelmina's crew and passengers were holding an abandon-ship drill, a lookout spotted what looked like a submarine periscope 200 yards (183 meters) from the ship and just forward of the port beam.

It may have remained in the area to try again, as on the following day, 15 August, a submarine periscope appeared some 200 yards (183 meters) away from the troopship, prompting three salvoes which drove the would-be attacker off.

With the 'scope in sight for about 10 seconds, the time allotted the gun crews of the American ships that spotted the enemy was short.

The wake soon disappeared; both Pastores and the Italian transport SS Dante Alighieri also fired several rounds at what was possibly a submersible with no apparent success.

She conducted seven postwar, round-trip voyages, returning 11,577 men home to the United States including 2,610 sick and wounded.

A fire broke out in a storeroom where blankets and pillows were kept, a little over six hours after the ship departed Bassens, France, standing down the Gironde River on 25 March 1919.

Wilhelmina subsequently entered the Ambrose Channel on 4 April 1919 and docked at Pier 1, Hoboken, New Jersey, the following day.

In 1927, Wilhelmina was one of two ships that steered to aid the Travel Air 5000 City of Oakland in its successful transpacific flight attempt.

[1] Sold to British interests in 1940, Wilhelmina was in Convoy HX 90, steaming ing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to Liverpool, England, in the North Atlantic, on 2 December 1940 when the German submarine U-94, part of a wolfpack that included U-47 of Scapa Flow fame, drew a bead on a tanker and the steamer W. Hendrik, and fired two torpedoes.