SS Audacious was a cargo steamship. She was built in 1913 as the cargo liner for the Austro-Hungarian shipping line Unione Austriaca, to take emigrants from Trieste to the Americas. In 1919 became Cosulich Line. In 1924 she was converted into a refrigerated cargo ship. In 1933 Cosulich Line became part of Italian Line. In 1935 she was chartered as a troopship, taking troops to Italian East Africa. In 1936, most of her passenger accommodation was removed. In 1940 was interned in Philadelphia. In 1941 members of her crew disabled her engine, and a US court convicted five of them of sabotage. The US seized , had her repaired, renamed her Audacious, and registered her in Panama. United States Lines, and then the United States Navigation Company, managed her for the US government. She sailed in North Atlantic convoys from 1941 until 1944, carrying cargo and occasionally carrying passengers or troops. In 1944 she was a troopship in the Normandy landings at Omaha Beach, and then was scuttled as a breakwater for a Gooseberry Harbor.
Building and registration Cantiere Navale Triestino in Monfalcone, near Trieste in what was then Austria-Hungary, built the ship. She was launched on 4 April 1913 as , named after the 18th-century Belvedere royal palaces in Vienna. She was completed on 22 August. Her lengths were overall, and registered. Her beam was , her depth was , and her draft was . As built, she had berths for 1,426 passengers: 12 in first class, 140 in second class, and 1,274 in third class; and her tonnages were and . Her first and second class accommodation was in her superstructure amidships. Her third class accommodation was on the upper tween deck in her holds fore and aft.
She had a single screw, driven by a three-cylinder triple-expansion engine that was built by the North Eastern Marine Engineering Co of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It was rated at 650 NHP, and gave her a speed of . She had four single-ended boilers, with a total of 12 corrugated furnaces; and as built, they were coal-fired.
registered at Trieste. Unusually, Lloyd's Register has no code letters for her when she was registered in Austria-Hungary. From new, she was equipped with wireless telegraphy. By 1914 her call sign was OKB, and her wireless was operated and controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Inspectorate of the radiotelegraph service, based in Trieste.
Cosulich Line was designed for the route from Trieste to Buenos Aires. However, her maiden voyage, which began on 30 August 1913, was to New York. Over the next year, her ports of call on this route included Patras, Palermo, and Algiers. On 27 March 1914, she arrived in New York carrying seven Egyptian mummies destined for the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, 40 Greek veterans of the First Balkan War, and the brides of 30 of those veterans. remained on this route until 20 June 1914. After the First World War began in August 1914, she was laid up at Šibenik on the Austrian Littoral.
On 4 March 1918, became an accommodation ship for workers at the Austro-Hungarian Navy dockyard in Pula, and in November 1918, Italian forces captured her there. was requisitioned as a troopship, and on 10 April 1919, she left Genoa to carry troops to New York. She flew "the inter-allied flag" from her taffrail as her ensign, and the Italian ensign from her masthead. She called at Marseille, where she embarked the entirety of the American Expeditionary Forces' 13th Railroad Engineers, comprising eight casual officers and 42 civilians. The 13th was a unit organised by Samuel Morse Felton Jr. to operate railroads in France. The unit was commanded by a Colonel CL Whitney, from Montana, and recruited from the staff of 24 US railroads. It operated mainly in Champagne, supporting the French 4th Army. On 28 April, reached New York, where she disembarked her railroad men, and was to load a cargo of food for Italy for her return voyage.
Italian registration In November 1918, Italy occupied Trieste; and under the Treaty of Rapallo of November 1920, Trieste became part of Italy. On 5 May 1919, renamed itself . 's registration passed to Italy, while remaining in Trieste.
On 13 August 1919, left Trieste on a voyage to New York. Labor disputes at all of her ports of call delayed her passage. She left Naples on 27 August 1919, and reached New York on 16 September. Among her passengers was the Sistine Chapel Choir, including 18 boy sopranos. The boys were all minors not accompanied by their parents or guardians, so a board of special inquiry of the Bureau of Immigration held a hearing on Ellis Island to examine them and admit them to the US with the minimum of delay. Her route at this time still included Patras.
On a westbound crossing from Trieste to New York in January 1920, 's route included a call in the Azores, and her New York terminal was in South Brooklyn. After another westbound crossing, she reached Bush Terminal in Brooklyn on 6 July 1920. Public health officials allowed her first and second class passengers straight through US immigration, but sent her 1,517 third class passengers to Hoffman Island for five days' quarantine, as they came from parts of Europe stricken by typhus.
Two refits From May 1921, the Emergency Quota Act restricted migration to the US from Europe, and especially from southern and eastern Europe. Cosulich line planned to transfer to its route between Trieste and South America, so from 11 May 1922, her accommodation was modified to 144 in cabin class and 1,400 in third class. On 18 September that year, she made her final voyage to New York, before being transferred to the route between Trieste and Buenos Aires. She called at Naples on 20 September 1922, Almería in Spain on 23 September, and reached New York on 9 October. She was due to leave New York on 17 October, to return to Naples. By July 1923, her tonnages had been revised to and . By July 1924, her code letters were NGHC.
In March 1924, the Monfalcone shipyard began refitting her again. Her furnaces were converted from coal fuel to oil. Her holds were equipped with refrigeration, to carry frozen meat from Argentina. The Liverpool Refrigeration Co, Ltd of England supplied the refrigeration system. It used brine as the coolant, and both granulated cork and "silicate cotton" (mineral wool) as insulation materials. Her passenger accommodation was revised again, to 74 second class and 1,116 third class. Her refit had been completed by August 1924. By 1928, her tonnages had been revised again, to and . By 1930, her refrigerated cargo capacity was .
On 2 January 1932, Cosulich Società Triestina di Navigazione merged with Lloyd Sabaudo and Navigazione Generale Italiana to form Italia Flotte Riuniti. By July 1933, was equipped with wireless direction finding. On 9 November 1933, as new ships entered service, she was transferred to routes serving the Adriatic Sea, Tyrrhenian Sea, and Buenos Aires. By July 1934, her call sign was IBIE, and this had superseded her code letters.
On 18 January 1935, left Buenos Aires for the last time, with the intention of being converted into a cargo-only ship for services between Italy and North America. However, on 17 February that year, when she was in Civitavecchia, the Ministry of the Navy chartered her for trooping between Italy and Italian East Africa. She went to Naples, where on 27 February she left for Eritrea. On 5 March she arrived in Massawa, where she remained as a stationary cold store. On 8 May that year, she left Trieste on a naval transport voyage. On 3 October, Italy attacked Ethiopia, starting the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.
On 5 May 1936, the war ended. By July 1936, 's refrigerated cargo capacity had been revised to . On 17 August 1936 she returned to Trieste at the end of her charter, having completed 17 voyages for the Navy. She then went to Monfalcone, to be refitted for her return to merchant service. Her accommodation was reduced to a total of only 12 passenger berths. On 20 September that year, she resumed merchant service to South America.
Italia Line became "Italia" Società Anonima di Navigazione, and on 4 January 1937, 's registration was transferred to Genoa. In May 1937 she arrived at Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico in Monfalcone, to be converted into a cargo-only ship, as had been planned two years earlier. Her total cargo capacity was now . Her tonnages were revised again, to and . On 1 June that year she entered service on a route between the Adriatic and the US, serving the Tyrrhenian Sea, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and the Gulf of Mexico.
By 7 June 1940, was in Philadelphia. On the same day, the Italian government ordered all of its merchant ships to take refuge in neutral ports. 's Master, Captain Tomicich, prepared to lay her up in port indefinitely. Three days later, on 10 June, Italy joined the Second World War by invading France, so was interned in Philadelphia. On the opposite bank of the Delaware River, three other Italian ships remained at Gloucester in the Port of Camden, New Jersey. They were , , and .
Machinery disabled In 1941, relations between Italy and the US deteriorated. On 6 March, it emerged that the US government had asked the Italian government to restrict the movements of its consular staff in the US. And on 29 March, the US government "took into custody" of all 28 Italian merchant ships in US ports, including . United States Navy men from Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and US Coastguard men, boarded and the three ships at Gloucester. On all four ships, they found that, only hours earlier, "the main shafts and parts of the engines of the four freighters had been burned through with acetylene torches", and that on two of the ships at Gloucester, holes had been punched in their boilers. A detachment of US Marines took the crews of the four ships to the US Immigration and Naturalization Service station in Gloucester. Other Marines and US Coast Guard men formed armed guards aboard the four ships. Days later, a US Coast Guard report detailed the damage to 's machinery. Her condensers, crossheads, and low-pressure cylinder had been smashed, and there was other minor damage.
When questioned, Captain Tomicich said that the crew of his ship, and of the three ships at Gloucester, sabotaged their engines "on orders from the proper authority", and that "We did the best we could to put the engines and ships completely out of commission. We did not want our own Italian ships carrying bombs to England to bomb our people." However, he added, "We were distinctly told that our government would not tolerate sinking or setting fire to our ships in American waters; that under no circumstances were we to do anything that would in any way harm the American people. That is why all the damage was done on the inside of the ships."
Prosecution and convictions The crews of all four ships were investigated for sabotage, and some of them were charged under the Espionage Act of 1917. If convicted, they faced penalties of either up to 20 years in jail, a fine of up to $10,000, or both. However, was in Pennsylvania, whereas the three ships at Gloucester were in New Jersey, placing them under two different jurisdictions. On 7 April, 37 members of the crews from the three ships at Gloucester were indicted to appear in court at Woodbury, New Jersey, on 10 April, and were bailed for $5,000 each. That same day, Gerald A. Gleeson, Federal Attorney for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, announced that 16 members of 's 37 crew would appear the next day in Philadelphia before a Federal grand jury, charged with sabotage.