Post-war Civilian Service
After both were reacquired by the Ward Line, Orizaba and Siboney were placed in transatlantic service on New York–Cuba–Spain routes in 1920, with Orizaba calling at Corunna, Santander, and Bilbao in Spain. The two ships accommodated 306 first-class, 60 second-class, and 64 third-class passengers, with each ship making several trips on the route, but a lack of passengers (along with the grounding of Siboney at Vigo in September 1920) led to the abandonment of the route.
By October 1921, Orizaba was placed in New York–Cuba–Mexico service, where business thrived, in part because of Prohibition in the United States. Ward Line cruises to Havana were one of the quickest and least expensive ways to what one author called "alcohol-enriched vacations". Three years later, the ship underwent a major refit that, among other things, lengthened her funnels. A typical voyage during this time sailed from New York and called at Nassau, Havana, Progreso, Veracruz and Tampico.
By the early 1930s, Orizaba’s typical route had remained virtually the same, though Nassau and Tampico were dropped as ports of call. It was during this period that American poet Hart Crane leapt to his death from Orizaba. At around noon on 27 April 1932, while the ship was headed to New York—some 275 miles (443 km) north of Havana and 10 miles (16 km) off the Florida coast—Crane, clad in pajamas and overcoat, climbed the rail at the stern of the ship and plunged into the ocean. The captain of Orizaba immediately stopped the ship and launched four lifeboats that searched in vain for two hours, but no trace of the poet was ever found. Before he jumped, Crane had been drinking and, the night before, had been the victim of homophobic violence after a pick-up attempt of a crewman ended with a severe beating.
In April 1934, American actress Katharine Hepburn sailed from New York on Orizaba, eventually ending up in Mérida, Yucatán. After her arrival there on 22 April, she filed for divorce from businessman Ludlow ("Luddy") Ogden Smith, whom she had married in December 1928. After the divorce was finalized she and her travel companion, Laura Harding, planned to spend a week in Havana and return to New York on the Ward Line ship Morro Castle. Other notable passengers on Orizaba in the 1930s included Ecuadorean diplomat Gonzalo Zaldumbide and Cuban president Fulgencio Batista. Zaldumbide, the Ecuadorean Minister to the United States, sailed to Mexico for his new posting as Minister to Mexico in August 1932. In February 1939, Orizaba carried Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista back to Havana after a two-week goodwill visit to Mexico.
Beginning in the mid-1930s, Orizaba often carried gold and silver bars from Veracruz to New York for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Chase National Bank, or for later transshipment to London. In October 1933 three short tons (2.7 tonnes) of gold bars and coins were shipped on Orizaba for eventual delivery to London, prompting some to believe that gold was being smuggled into Mexico to take advantage of its policy of not charging duties on gold. In July 1934 Orizaba brought in 16 cases of Mexican gold, and in January 1935, 20 cases; in both instances, for delivery to Chase National Bank. Twice in 1935, the Ward liner delivered over 1,000 bars of silver for the Federal Reserve Bank, bringing 1,390 bars in March, and 1,933 bars in July. Mexico was not the only place from which Orizaba delivered precious metals. In March 1934, she delivered 12 cases of gold—consisting of 84 bars, and worth $1,624,000—from Havana for Chase.
In mid-1939, Orizaba was chartered to United States Lines as one of five ships added to increase what was perceived as a slow rate of return of US citizens fleeing war-torn Europe. In September, the ship was diverted to Galway to pick up American survivors of SS Athenia, torpedoed by U-30 on 3 September; Orizaba returned with 240 of the survivors later that month. After completing evacuation service, the ship was laid up in New York during the summer of 1940, and subsequently purchased by the Maritime Commission on behalf of the Army on 27 February 1941.
Read more about this topic: USS Orizaba (ID-1536)
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