The Vaterland was the second of the Hamburg-America Line's trio of giants - Germany's answer to White Star Line's Olympic class steamers.

The Vaterland was built by the Blohm and Voss Shipbuilders A/G in Hamburg, Germany.  Her intended name was originally Europa, but due to political reasons, she ended up being named the Vaterland.  She entered service in May of 1914.  However, her commercial life for Hamburg-America was extremely brief.  After seven crossings, she received orders to remain in New York for further instructions.  As it turned out, crossing number seven would be the last movement for the Vaterland for three years.

During this period of idleness in New York Harbor, the Vaterland was the center of German society.   Since there was a large pro-German sentiment in America at the time, with many hoping that America would join the war on Germany's side, gala fund-raising parties for German war victims.

However, this feeling eventually changed, and the ship became known as a "nest of spies" as anti-German sentiment became more prevalent as the war progressed.  When the United States entered World War I, the Vaterland was seized for military purposes...

When the Vaterland was seized by the United States, she was renamed the Leviathan.  Her first duty under her new name was to serve her new country in the war effort as a troopship.   Her conversion to a trooper was done with great difficulty, due to the fact that there were no plans for her interiors or her machinery.  The Americans ended up making their own plans for the ship, measuring every inch of it to create the necessary blueprints.  Leviathan was known by many nicknames during the war, with "Levi-Nathan" (also reported to be "Levi Nation") and the "Big Train" being her most popular ones.  All in all, she provided outstanding war service on the side of the Allies, and after World War I, she was to return to peace-time service.

However, before the Leviathan could enter peace-time service for the United States Lines, as with most passenger liners that serve as troopers, she had to be refitted.  This commenced in 1922.  It was a protracted affair, primarily due to lack of plans (the Germans wanted some $1,000,000 for the original plans).   But, on July 4, 1923, the Leviathan entered peace-time service for the United States Lines.  She served on the transatlantic route.

In order to make her more attractive to customers, the man who rebuilt her, William Francis Gibbs (later the designer of the America and the United States) used every measuring trick in the book to make her original 54,000 gross tonnage turn into 59,956 tons.  Thus, the United States Lines claimed that the Leviathan was the largest ship in the world, as shown in the poster at left.  This was much to the frustration of White Star, whose Majestic rightly deserved that title.  She was later remeasured using a strict interpretation of the American tonnage rules (in order to save money), and her total came out at 48,943 gross tons.  The reason for the smaller figure is because American rules exclude the superstructure of the ship.  She was originally measured under British rules, which did include the superstructure.

Gibbs also intended to make the Leviathan appear to be the world's fastest.  When her trials were run in 1923, they were run with the help of the Gulf Stream.  She did set a world's speed record at that time, but she never won the Blue Riband from Cunard's Mauretania.   So... the Leviathan was the second largest ship (exceeded only by the Majestic), and the second fastest ship (exceeded only by the Mauretania) on the Atlantic.

The Leviathan served for slightly less than twelve years on the Atlantic.  However, during this time she constantly was a headline-maker.   Everything she did was news.  In fact, she was the best-known liner in the western world.

However, it was not all happiness in the career of the Leviathan.  For one thing, she lacked a suitable running mate.  In addition, America was under Prohibition at the time, and so no alcohol could be sold aboard her (foreign liners, on the other hand, could serve all they wanted).

The Leviathan was run by the government for most of her life.   Attempts to sell her to a private company failed for politically motivated reasons.   She finally did pass into private ownership in 1929, just before the Great Depression started.  The Great Depression sealed the Leviathan's fate.   After five crossings in 1934, she was laid up.  Three years later, she was sold for scrap.  In the early part of 1938, she sailed to Rosyth, Scotland, where she was subsequently broken up.

Vaterland/Leviathan Vital Statistics

Gross tonnage: 54,282 (1914), 59,956 (1923)

Length: 950 feet

Width: 100 feet

Draft: 35 feet

Machinery: Steam turbines geared to quadruple screw

Speed: 23 knots (maximum 25 knots)

Capacity: 752 First, 535 Second, 850 Third, 1,172 Steerage (1914); 970 First, 542 Second, 944 Third, 935 Fourth (1923); 940 First, 666 Tourist, 1,402 Third (1931)

Built: Blohm and Voss Shipbuilders A/G, Hamburg, Germany, 1914

Demise: Scrapped in Rosyth, Scotland, 1938

The Classic Liners of Long Ago © 2000-2007 Nick Works, Inc.