SS Imperator was a German ocean liner built for the Hamburg America Line (Hamburg Amerikanische Paketfahrt Aktien Gesellschaft, or HAPAG), launched in 1912. At the time of his completion in June 1913, he was the largest passenger ship in the world by gross tonnage, surpassing the new White Star liner Olympic. Imperator was the first of a trio of successively larger Hamburg American liners that included SS Vaterland (later the United States Liner Leviathan) and SS Bismarck (later the White Star Line Majestic) all of which were seized as war reparations. Imperator served for 14 months on HAPAG's transatlantic route, until the outbreak of World War I, after which he remained in port in Hamburg. After the war, he was briefly commissioned into the United States Navy as USS Imperator (ID-4080) and employed as a transport, returning American troops from Europe. Following his service with the U.S. Navy, Imperator was handed over to Britain's Cunard Line as part of war reparations, due to the loss of the RMS Lusitania, where he sailed as the flagship RMS Berengaria for the last 20 years of his career. William H. Miller wrote that "despite his German heritage and the barely disguised Teutonic tone of his interiors, he was thought of in the 1920s and 30s as one of Britain's finest liners." Construction and early career The first plates of the keel were laid in 1910 at the Vulcan Shipyards in Hamburg, Germany and the ship made his maiden voyage in 1913. At 52,117 gross register tons, Imperator was the largest ship in the world until Vaterland sailed in May 1914. After the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912, the shipyard added more lifeboats to Imperator to ensure there was more than enough room for all passengers and crew. In total, Imperator would carry 83 lifeboats capable of holding 5,500 people between them, 300 more than the ship's maximum capacity. Before his launch on 23 May 1912, Cunard announced that its new ship, , which was under construction at the time at the John Brown shipyards in Glasgow, would be longer by , causing dismay in Hamburg. Several weeks later, he was fitted with a figurehead, an imposing bronze eagle, increasing his length past that of Aquitania. The eagle was created by Professor Bruno Kruse of Berlin, and adorned his forepeak with a banner emblazoned with HAPAG's motto Mein Feld ist die Welt