LEVIATHAN SOLD.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 8, 7 December 1937, Page 9

LEVIATHAN SOLD.

SHIP FOR SCRAP AIETAL. . NEW YORK, Dec. 5. The United States Lines has announced that it has sold the Leviathan, the famous wartime troop transport, to Metal Industries Ltd., of London, for scrap metal. The price was 800,000 dollars. The Leviathan is departing soon under her own power lor England.

The Leviathan, (formerly the Vatcrland) is one of tlio three' giant trans-Atlantic Imors originally designed and built for the Hamburg-Amorica Line shortly bofore the war to challenge Biitish supremacy in the North Atlantic trade. The German names originally selected for the trio were Imperator, Vatcrland and Bismarck. Ihe Imperator went into service in 1912-13, following shortly after the Olympic and the ill-fated Titanic of the White Star Line. The Vatcrland followed in the early months of 1914, but the outbreak of war caused a stoppage of work on the Bismarck, which remained in the hands of her builders, Blohm and Voss, at Hamburg for another five or aix years. The dimensions of the Vatcrland wore 48.943 tons gross register; 15,976 tons net register; length, 907 ft 6in; breadth, 100 ft 3in. When the Great War started in August, 1914, the Vaterland was lying in New York and the Imperator in Hamburg, and there they remained, the latter ship till 1919, When the United States entered the war in April, 1917, all the German ships in American ports were commandeered and fitted out as transports. The Vaterland was renamed the Leviathan and, under the United States flag, she carried thousands of American troops across the Atlantic. After the conclusion of hostilities and the repatriation of the American armies, the Leviathan was reconditioned and refitted as a passenger liner and was run by the United States lines in the trans-Atlantic trade in competition with the Cunard Lino, the White Star Lino, and other big companies, among her rivals being her original German sisters.