USS Princess Matoika (ID-2290) - USAT Princess Matoika

USAT Princess Matoika

As her career as an Army transport began, Princess Matoika picked up where her Navy career had ended and continued the return of American troops from Europe. After returning to France she loaded 2,965 troops at Brest—including Brigadier General W. P. Richardson and members of the Polar Bear Expedition, part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War—for a return to New York on 15 October. In December, Congressman Charles H. Randall (Prohibitionist-CA) and his wife sailed on the Matoika to Puerto Rico and the Panama Canal.

On 5 April, Princess Matoika carried a group of 18 men and three officers of the U.S. Navy who were to attempt a transatlantic flight in the rigid airship R38, being built in England for the Navy. Several of the group that traveled on the Matoika were among the 45 men killed when the airship crashed on 24 August 1921.

In May 1920 Princess Matoika took on board the bodies of ten female nurses and over 400 soldiers who died while on duty in France during the war. The ship then transited the Kiel Canal and picked up 1,600 U.S. residents of Polish descent at Danzig, all of whom had enlisted in the Polish Army at the outset of the war. Also included among the passengers were 500 U.S. soldiers who had been released from occupation duty at Koblenz. The ship arrived at New York on 23 May with little fanfare and no ceremony; bodies returned but not claimed by families were buried at Arlington National Cemetery. On 21 July, Princess Matoika arrived in New York after a similar voyage with 25 war brides, many repatriated Polish troops among its 2,094 steerage passengers, and the remains of 881 soldiers. In between these two trips, the Belgian Ambassador to the United States, Baron Emile de Cartier de Marchienne, sailed from New York to Belgium on board the Matoika. It was, however, Princess Matoika's next trip to Belgium that was the most infamous.