page_title: SS Imperator
section_title: Construction and early career
hierarchical_section_title: SS Imperator / Construction and early career
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Imperator vor der Mühle J. P. Lange Söhne in Altona mit Marineluftschiff L 1 (LZ 14)English: SS Imperator in front of the mill J. P. Lange Sons in Altona near Hamburg with naval airship L 1 (LZ 14)
context_page_description: SS Imperator was a German ocean liner built for the Hamburg America Line, launched in 1912. At the time of her completion in June 1913, she was the largest passenger ship in the world by gross tonnage, surpassing the new White Star giants, Olympic and Titanic.
  Imperator was the first of a trio of successively larger Hamburg American liners that included SS Vaterland and SS Bismarck.
  During World War I, the ship remained in port in Hamburg. After the war, she was briefly commissioned into the United States Navy as USS Imperator and employed as a transport, returning American troops from Europe. Following her service with the U.S. Navy, Imperator was handed over to Britain's Cunard Line as part of war reparations where she sailed as the flagship RMS Berengaria for the final decade of her career.
context_section_description: The first plates of her keel were laid in 1910 at the Vulcan Shipyards in Hamburg, Germany, and made her maiden voyage in 1913. At 52,117 gross register tons, Imperator was the largest ship in the world until Vaterland sailed in May 1914.
  Before its launch on 23 May 1912, Cunard announced that its new ship, RMS Aquitania, which was under construction at the time at the John Brown shipyards in Glasgow, would be longer by 1 foot (300 mm). There was chagrin in Hamburg. Several weeks later, she was fitted with an imposing bronze eagle figurehead, created by Professor Bruno Kruse of Berlin, which adorned her forepeak with a banner emblazoned with HAPAG's motto Mein Feld ist die Welt (My field is the world); this meant that the length of Imperator surpassed that of Aquitania. The eagle's wings were torn off in an Atlantic storm during the 1914 season, after which the figurehead was removed and replaced with gold scroll-work similar to that on the stern.
  On its initial sea trials, the ship ran aground on the Elbe river due to insufficient dredging and a flash fire in the engine room which resulted in eight crewmen being taken to hospital. On her official trials, she suffered overheating of the turbines and some stability issues were discovered. The trials were therefore abandoned and the builders were called in to carry out emergency work. Coincidentally, 1913 was the silver jubilee year for the Kaiser, so he was going to be treated to an overnight cruise on the North Sea before the ship would make its maiden voyage.  The overnight cruise was cancelled; it was eventually carried out in July that year.
  Imperator left on her maiden voyage on Wednesday, 11 June 1913, with Commodore Hans Ruser in command and Hamburg-Amerika appointing four other captains for the journey to make sure that everything went smoothly. On the way, she stopped at Southampton and Cherbourg before proceeding across the Atlantic to New York, arriving on 19 June 1913. On board were 4,986, consisting of 859 first-class passengers, 647 second-class passengers, 648 third-class passengers, 1,495 in the steerage, and 1,332 crew. The ship returned to Europe from Hoboken, New Jersey, on 25 June 1913.
  On its first arrival, the harbour pilot assigned to bring it into the Ambrose channel, Captain George Seeth, noted that the ship listed from side to side when the helm made changes to the ship's direction. She was soon nicknamed "Listerator".
  In October 1913, Imperator returned to the Vulkan shipyard to facilitate drastic work to improve handling and stability, as it had been discovered that her centre of gravity was too high (see metacentric height). To correct the problem, the marble bathroom suites in first class were removed and heavy furniture was replaced with lightweight wicker cane. The ship's funnels were reduced in height by 9.8 ft (3 m). Finally, 2,000 tons of cement was poured into the ship's double bottom as ballast. This work cost £200,000, which had to be borne by the shipyard as part of their five-year warranty to the shipowners. At the same time, an advanced fire sprinkler system was fitted throughout the ship, as several fires had occurred on board since the vessel had entered service.
  During the 1914 refit of Imperator, Commodore Ruser handed over command of the ship to Captain Theo Kier and left to take command of the new larger flagship Vaterland, which was nearing completion. Imperator returned to service on 11 March, arriving at New York five days later on the 19th.
  Among its luxurious features, Imperator introduced a two-deck-high, Pompeiian-style swimming pool for its first-class passengers.
caption: Imperator in Hamburg, 1913
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D7100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2014:01:11 18:43:44", "Image Artist": "Frank Schwichtenberg", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "365", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "999", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1111", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4051", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "13", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "6400", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:01:11 14:17:22", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:01:11 14:17:22", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "49/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "80", "EXIF SubSecTime": "70", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "70", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "70", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3736", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2649", "Interoperability Tag 0x0103": "6", "Interoperability Tag 0x011A": "72", "Interoperability Tag 0x011B": "72", "Interoperability Tag 0x0128": "2", "Interoperability Tag 0x0201": "1111", "Interoperability Tag 0x0202": "4051", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1017", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "80", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Portrait", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}