As Lurline (1932) in 1933. . SS
Lurline was christened on 12 July 1932 in
Quincy, Massachusetts, by
Lurline Matson Roth for the
Matson Lines' Pacific services.
Lurline was the last of the four
American-built Matson "White Fleet" liners designed by
William Francis Gibbs; Roth, the daughter of the Matson Lines' founder, previously had christened a namesake 1908 steamship
Lurline as a young woman of 18. On 12 January 1933, SS
Lurline left New York City bound for San Francisco via the
Panama Canal on her maiden voyage, thence to
Sydney and the
South Seas, returning to San Francisco on 24 April 1933. She then served on the express San Francisco to
Honolulu service with her sister "White Fleet" ship
Malolo. Aviator
Amelia Earhart was carried by
Lurline from Los Angeles to Honolulu with her
Lockheed Vega airplane secured on deck during December 22–27, 1934. The voyage prepared her for the record-breaking Honolulu-to-Oakland solo flight she made in January 1935.
Lurline was halfway from Honolulu to San Francisco on 7 December 1941, carrying a record load of 765 passengers, when the
Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The ship's alleged reception of radio signals from the Japanese fleet became part of the
Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy theory. She arrived safely on December 10, travelling in a zigzag path under radio silence and blacked out at night, and soon returned to Hawaii with her Matson sisters and in a
convoy laden with troops and supplies. On 30 April 30 1942, the SS
Lurline, along with a convoy of seven
Matson Line ships including
USS Hugh L. Scott, boarded the 32nd Infantry Division at Pier 42 in San Francisco. The convoy (SF 43) was escorted by the cruiser
USS Indianapolis and two corvettes. Four days out of San Francisco, the
Lurline ship's crew discovered the division's mascot, a dog named Vicksburg. She was named for the town in which she was born and the location of the final major campaign of the
American Civil War. Vicksburg was killed in a road accident in Southport, Australia on 8 October 1942. Taking a southerly route to avoid the Japanese Navy, the ship stopped at Wellington and then Auckland, New Zealand. The ship departed Auckland and entered a zone where two freighters had been sunk by Japanese submarines in recent days. The soldiers stayed fully dressed and wide eyed for the two days to Sydney. They arrived in southern Australia at
Port Adelaide on 14 May 1942, having traveled in 23 days. in 1955.|leftShe spent the war providing similar services, often voyaging to Australia, and once transported Australian Prime Minister
John Curtin to America to confer with
President Roosevelt. Wartime events put
Lurline at risk.
Royal Australian Air Force trainee pilot Arthur Harrison had been put on watch without adequate training. "A straight line of bubbles extending from away out on the starboard side of the ship to across the bow. I had never seen anything quite like it, but it reminded me of bubbles behind a motorboat. I called to the lad on watch on the next gun forward. A few seconds later the ship went into a hard 90° turn to port. We RAAF trainees received a severe reprimand from the captain for not reporting the torpedo. Anyway, it was a bad miss."
Lurline was returned to Matson Lines in mid-1946 and extensively refitted at Bethlehem-Alameda Shipyard in
Alameda, California, in 1947 at a cost exceeding US$18 million, with accommodations designed by
Raymond Loewy for 484 first-class and 238 cabin-class passengers, served by a crew of 444. She resumed her San Francisco–Los Angeles–Honolulu service from 15 April 1948, calling at Los Angeles on April 16 and arriving at Honolulu on April 21. Her high occupancy rates during the early 1950s caused Matson to also refit her sister ship
Monterey (renaming her SS
Matsonia) and the two liners provided a
first-class-only service between Hawaii and the American mainland from June 1957 to September 1962, mixed with the occasional Pacific cruise. Serious competition from
jet airliners caused passenger loads to fall in the early 1960s and
Matsonia was laid up in late 1962. Only a few months later,
Lurline arrived in Los Angeles with serious engine trouble in her port
turbine, and was laid up, with the required repairs considered too expensive. Matson instead brought the
Matsonia out of retirement, and characteristically, changed her name to
Lurline. The original
Lurline was sold to
Chandris Lines in 1963.
As Ellinis of the Chandris Line of
Newcastle in 1963.
Lurline was bought by Chandris Lines in September 1963 to replace
SS Brittany, wrecked by fire earlier in the year.
Ellinis sailed under her new name from
California to
North East England for repairs in
North Shields, and was refitted with increased accommodation for 1,668 passengers in one class. She was given new Chandris
livery and a modernised
superstructure with new
funnels, and embarked on her maiden voyage from
Piraeus to Sydney on 30 December 1963. Her homeward voyages were alternately routed east via the
Panama Canal to
Southampton. The ship took occasional cruises. In April 1974, cruising to Japan,
Ellinis developed major problems in one engine. Fortunately, Chandris were able to buy a surplus engine from her sister ship
Homeric (ex-
Mariposa), which was being
broken up in
Taiwan at the time. The replacement was carried out in
Rotterdam, finishing in March 1975.
Ellinis provided mainly cruise services from 1975, and in October 1981, she was finally laid up in
Greece after providing passenger services for nearly fifty years. Despite various plans to use the ship whole, she was sold in 1986 and scrapped in Taiwan in 1987. Some of her fittings were installed in other Chandris ships; her engine parts were stored against future need by her aging sister
Britanis (ex-
Monterey).
Elliniss radio callsign was SWXX and two of her known QSS ("working frequencies") were 8343 and 12508
kHz. == Other ships named
Lurline of the Matson Line ==