the Second World War and then went to Liverpool for a refit. This was interrupted in June 1940 when Strathaird was ordered to take part in Operation Aerial to evacuate British and Allied personnel from western France. Strathaird evacuated 6,000 civilians and troops from the port of Brest. In 1941, she supported the transfer of the first unit of Foresters from British Honduras (Belize) to Trinidad before transporting 114 Foresters to Greenock, Scotland. She remained a troop ship until the end of 1946 when she was returned to P&O. P&O had Vickers-Armstrong refit and overhaul Strathaird, starting in 1947 and completing work in January 1948. Her capacity for first class passengers was increased to 573 and her tourist class accommodation was reduced to 496. This reduced her total passenger capacity from 1,166 to 1,069. Her dummy first and third funnels were removed, which made Strathaird look more like her later sisters Stratheden, Strathallan and Strathmore. In 1954, P&O had Strathaird refitted again. First class was abolished and all accommodation was made tourist class, which increased total passenger capacity from 1,069 to 1,252. Strathaird made her first departure from Tilbury in her new form on 8 April 1954. At the beginning of the 1960s, Strathnaver and Strathaird were almost three decades old and no longer reliable enough for mail and passenger service, so P&O replaced both ships with . P&O sold Strathnaver and Strathaird for scrap to Shun Fung Ironworks of Hong Kong. Strathaird left Tilbury on 17 June 1961 for Hong Kong, where she became the first of the "Strath" class liners to be scrapped. Strathnaver followed her to the breakers in 1962. Notable passengers Egon Kisch In November 1934, the Czechoslovak Communist writer, journalist and opponent of Nazism Egon Kisch sailed on Strathaird to Australia to speak at a conference organised by the communist Movement Against War and Fascism to mark the Centenary of Melbourne. When the ship called at Fremantle Harbour on 6 November, Federal authorities boarded her, told Kisch that he would be excluded from Australia under the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, and placed him in the custody of Strathairds master, Captain Carter. On 12 November, Strathaird reached Melbourne, where a barrister for the Communist International Labor Defense organisation boarded her and served Captain Carter with a writ of habeas corpus to allow Kisch ashore to make his case for entry to the country. Australian authorities still