page_title: SS Manchuria (1903)
section_title: Interwar years
hierarchical_section_title: SS Manchuria (1903) / Interwar years
caption_attribution_description: English: Manchuria at new municipal pier, San Diego, California 1925.
context_page_description: SS Manchuria was a passenger and cargo liner launched 1903 for the San Francisco-trans Pacific service of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. During World War I the ship was commissioned 25 April 1918–11 September 1919 for United States Navy service as USS Manchuria. After return to civilian service the ship was acquired by the Dollar Steamship Line in 1928 until that line suffered financial difficulties in 1938 and ownership of Manchuria was taken over by the United States Maritime Commission which chartered the ship to American President Lines which operated her as SS President Johnson. During World War II she operated as a War Shipping Administration transport with American President Lines its agent allocated to United States Army requirements. After World War II, she was returned to American President Lines, sold and renamed SS Santa Cruz. The liner was scrapped in Italy in 1952.
context_section_description: Manchuria began service on the New York to Hamburg with the American Line in December 1919.
  In 1923 she was shifted to New York–Panama Canal–San Francisco run to operate under another subsidiary of International Mercantile Marine Co., the Panama Pacific Line.
  In November 1924 the ship and line's regularly scheduled ports of call for Manchuria, Mongolia, Finland and Kroonland included San Diego, with the new schedule being New York and San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland, California, Portland, Oregon and Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. Until the scheduled departure of Manchuria from New York on 12 February 1925 only passenger traffic had been accepted for San Diego, but with regional and city leaders urging service the line began accepting freight as well beginning that departure.
  On 1 November 1928 she was renamed President Johnson and sold seven days later to Dollar Steamship Lines for round‑the‑world cruises. On 3 November 1928 Dollar delivered the ship to Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Company for a major refit and passenger space renovation that was completed 19 January 1929. All old first class quarters were stripped and replaced with seventy-five staterooms and twenty-five new private baths for 175 first class passengers. All public rooms were renovated, a new deck house was built on the boat deck for a smoking room and verandah cafe with a 40 feet (12.2 m) by 60 feet (18.3 m) "play ground" atop. Much of the interior decoration and furnishing was done in San Francisco and shipped east to the shipyard for installation. A steel tank swimming pool was added on top of the after deck house.
  President Johnson was being featured in the first class only around the world service "as you please" with 1930 fares as low as $1,110 or $1,370 with private bath and tickets good for two years for visiting twenty-two ports in fourteen countries. Departures from the United States by a President liner every two weeks from the Puget Sound ports for Japan and around the world while another President liner departed New York every two weeks for Cuba and California by the Panama Canal and then from Seattle and Vancouver, Canada for the voyage to Japan and around the world. In 1933 the ship was chartered for the 7th Annual Floating University around the world voyage of 137 days visiting 37 countries and islands, 45 ports and 140 cities and places with credit granted by special arrangement throu universities. The ship, to depart 4 February from New York, is described as a "floating campus" with class rooms, library, athletic facilities with student fares as low as $1,325 including tuition and shore trips.
  The Dollar Steamship Company, along with other Dollar companies and the ships were acquired by the United States Maritime Commission in an Adjustment Agreement on 15 August 1938 in which stock in the line was transferred to release $7,500,000 of the line's debt. The commission invested $4,500,000 in the new American President Lines with, over the years, $20,000,000 in grants to the line.
caption: Manchuria at new municipal pier, San Diego, California 1925, where increased demand made San Diego a Panama Pacific port of call.
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