SS Caserta - Early Career

Early Career

SS Maritzburg, an ocean liner with a gross tonnage (GT) of 6,847 tons, was built in 1904 by Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth and Company of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Sailing for the Bucknall Line during her first year of operation, the liner was sold in 1905 to Lloyd Italiano and renamed SS Mendoza.

Mendoza completed one trip to New York in January 1908, and two trips in September and October 1909. For the next two years, she began service to New York in May and continued through December. Beginning in May 1912, Mendoza began year-round service on the New York route, sailing opposite Taormina. In 1914, the ship was renamed SS Caserta after the city of Caserta, Italy, and continued New York service opposite Taormina.

In May 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, and ships from New York to Italy often carried Italian immigrants returning to fight for their homeland. One voyage of Caserta was typical; she sailed from New York on 1 November carrying some 1,200 men, nearly all of whom were, according to an article in The New York Times, reservists of the Italian Army.

Before her 1 February 1916 arrival in New York, Caserta had been armed with two 3-inch (76 mm) guns mounted on her after deckhouse, and manned by two gunners mates and two assistants. Caserta had been escorted by Italian Navy torpedo boats until she reached Gibraltar. The gunners practiced from Gibraltar to the Azores by shooting at submarine-like targets—butter barrels, which had been equipped with a stick, painted gray, and tossed from the bow of the ship. Caserta, by this time the only Lloyd Italiano ship sailing to New York, completed two more roundtrips to New York before Italy joined the war against Germany in August 1916. Caserta completed two more New York roundtrips before the end of the year. Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare on 1 February 1917. Lloyd Italiano did not have any U.S. passenger service that year, and Caserta's activities in 1917 are unknown.