Zeppelin ScStr

(ScStr.: dp. 21,753; Ibp. 550'; b. 67.2; dr. 26'6'
s. 15.5 k.)

Zeppelin—a steamer constructed in 1914 by Bremer Vulkan at Vegesack, Germany, for the North German Lloyd Line—was seized by United States officials at New York soon after the country's entry into World War I and turned over to the Emergency Fleet Corp. The Navy did not acquire her until the spring of 1919, well after the end of the war. She was placed in commission at New York on 5 March 1919, Comdr. William W. Galbraith in command.

Assigned to the New York Division of the Transport Force (not to be confused with the Naval Overseas Transportation Service), Zeppelin made two round-trip voyages between the United States and Europe, returning 15,800 American soldiers back home. Her third voyage took her back to Europe. However, she did not return to the United States. Instead, she was decommissioned on 25 November 1919 and returned to the United States Shipping Board which, in turn, transferred her to the British on 27 December 1919. Acquired by the Orient Steam Navigation Co., Ltd., in 1920, Zeppelin was renamed SS Ormuz and served under that name until the latter half of the 1920's. By 1927, her name had disappeared from mercantile lists.