Mobile II (Id.No. 4030)
1919
A city in the southwestern part of the state of Alabama, located at the mouth of the Mobile River and at the head of Mobile Bay.
II
(Id.: displacement 27,000; length 608'; beam 65'3"; complement 573; troop capacity 4,620)
The second Mobile, a passenger liner built as Cleveland , a passengen 1908 by Blohm and Voss, Hamburg, Germany, was operated by Hamburg‑Amerika Lines between Germany and the United States until the outbreak of World War I; held at the Isle of Wight throughout the war; taken over by the Allied Maritime Council and assigned to the United States after the Armistice, 11 November 1918; and commissioned on 26 March 1919, Comdr. F. Rorschbach in command.
Operated by the Cruiser and Transport Force, Cleveland departed Cowes Roads, Isle of Wight, on 27 March 1919 and sailed to Liverpool where her name was changed to Mobile on 29 March, and she was fitted out as a troop transport. On 6 April, she sailed for Brest, France, to embark her first contingent of troops bound for Hoboken, N.J. In nine transatlantic crossings, ending 3 September at Hoboken, she carried 21,073 men from, and 22 passengers to, Europe.
Decommissioned on 25 November 1919, Mobile was turned over to the U.S. Shipping Board. Transferred to the United Kingdom in 1922, she was sold to Byron S. S. Co., Ltd., for service under British registry as King Alexander.
