a hospital ship. The ship was allocated to Army transportation requirements and operated by Alooa Steamship Company under an Army Transportation Corps time charter agreement until placed under a general WSA agreement with Eastern Steamship on March 25. On August 1, 1942, the ship was delivered at Norfolk, Virginia, for operation under bareboat charter by the War Department (Army) for operation as a United States Army Transport. The transport operated during the first half of 1942 out of New Orleans to Curaçao, Trinidad, Jamaica, Haiti, Panama and San Juan, Puerto Rico. After repair and conversion in Galveston, Texas, during September and October 1942, Evangeline began operations out of New York in November to Oran, Casablanca, Algiers, Bizerte and other North African ports, supporting operations after the landings in North Africa on November 8, 1942. The transport made one trip to the United Kingdom after return to New York in August 1943, and in January 1944 departed for service in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) for operations. Evangeline called at Bora Bora, Milne Bay and Noumea before a voyage repair period in Honolulu and then extensive repairs at San Francisco from April to June 1944. The ship went from San Francisco to Seattle from which the ship returned to SWPA and Espiritu Santo, Milne Bay, Oro Bay, Finschhafen, Townsville, and Brisbane. The Army assigned Evangeline the local fleet number X-18 for those operations and the ship was shown as part of the SWPA fleet until July 1945. The ship returned on December 25, 1944, to Honolulu, and in January 1945 to San Francisco, where the Navy took over jurisdiction briefly until April. On April 20, 1945, Evangeline was again under the Army and returned to SWPA until returning to Los Angeles in December 1945. In January 1946, Evangeline sailed in ballast to arrive at Boston on February 7, 1946, for delivery to WSA for disposition. On February 19, 1946, the ship was returned to Eastern Steamship Lines for operation under WSA agreement until permanent return on July 1, 1946. Postwar commercial service After being refitted and refinished at the Bethlehem Steel Corporation's shipyards at a cost of US$1.5 million, she returned to passenger service in May 1947. Fire safety was considered during the refit. Since an upgrade of the ship to the then-current construction standards was not viable, the United States Coast Guard allowed the wooden construction to remain but mandated