![]() | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (March 2022) |
![]() SS Imperator
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History | |
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Name | SS Imperator |
Namesake | Latin Imperator, "emperor" |
Owner | Hamburg America Line |
Port of registry | Hamburg |
Route | Cuxhaven - Southampton - New York |
Builder | |
Laid down | 18 June 1910 |
Launched | 23 May 1912 |
Christened | 23 May 1912 |
Completed | June 1913 at Hamburg, Germany |
Maiden voyage | 11 June 1913, Cuxhaven to New York Via Southampton |
Fate | Seized as war reparations. Used as a troop transport ship for the United States from May 1919. Handed over to the Cunard Line in September 1919, and renamed as RMS Berengaria. Sold for scrap in 1939; final demolition completed in or around 1946. |
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Name | USS Imperator |
Acquired | by the Navy 5 May 1919 at Brest, France |
Commissioned | 5 May 1919 USS Imperator at Brest, France |
Decommissioned | 24 November 1919 at New York City |
Identification | ID-4080 |
Fate | Ceded to the Cunard Line as a war prize to make up for the loss of the RMS Lusitania and later renamed Berengaria |
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Name | RMS Berengaria |
Namesake | Berengaria of Navarre |
Owner |
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Route | Southampton to New York via Cherbourg. |
Acquired | 1919 |
Homeport | Liverpool, UK |
Fate | Scrapped between 1939–1946 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Imperator-class ocean liner |
Tonnage | 52,117 GRT |
Displacement | 53,000 tons[citation needed] |
Length | 906 ft (276 m) |
Beam | 98 ft 3 in (29.95 m) |
Draught | 35 ft 2 in (10.72 m) |
Decks | 11 |
Installed power | Steam generated at 265 psi by 46 watertube boilers of Vulcan Yarrow design, originally coal burning, later converted to oil fired in 1921. |
Propulsion | 4 steam turbines AEG-Vulcan / Parsons direct drive on four shafts, total of 60,000 shp (45,000 kW) |
Speed | 24 kn (44 km/h; 28 mph) max |
Capacity |
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Crew | 1,180 |
SS Imperator (known as RMS Berengaria for most of her career) was a German ocean liner built for the Hamburg America Line, launched in 1912. At the time of her completion in June 1913, she was the largest passenger ship in the world, surpassing the new White Star liner Olympic.
Imperator was the first of a trio of successively larger Hamburg American liners that included Vaterland (later the United States Liner Leviathan) and Bismarck (later the White Star Line Majestic) all of which were seized as war reparations.
Imperator served for 14 months on HAPAG's transatlantic route, until the outbreak of World War I, after which she remained in port in Hamburg. After the war, she was briefly commissioned into the United States Navy as USS Imperator (ID-4080) and employed as a transport, returning American troops from Europe. Following her service with the U.S. Navy, Imperator was purchased jointly by Britain's Cunard Line and White Star Line as part of war reparations, due to the loss of the RMS Lusitania, where she sailed as the flagship RMS Berengaria for the last 20 years of her career. William H. Miller wrote that "despite her German heritage and the barely disguised Teutonic tone of her interiors, she was thought of in the 1920s and 30s as one of Britain's finest liners."[1]
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