USS Susquehanna, a 10,058 gross ton transport, was built at Hamburg, Germany, in 1899 as the North German Lloyd passenger liner Rhein. She operated commercially for the next fifteen years, but was interned at Baltimore, Maryland, after World War I began in August 1914. The ship was seized by the U.S. Government in April 1917, when the United States entered the conflict. Turned over to the Navy and converted to a troopship, she was commissioned as USS Susquehanna in early September 1917 and later received the registry number ID 3016. During the remainder of the First World War she regularly steamed across the Atlantic to France, carrying over 18,000 troops in eight round-trip voyages. Once the Armistice went into effect she began the work of bringing U.S. forces home, making seven more voyages with over 15,500 military personnel embarked. USS Susquehanna was decommissioned in late August 1919 and turned over to the U.S. Shipping Board. Reconverted for commercial use, she operated briefly in 1920-1922 but was then laid up. The now-elderly ship was scrapped in 1928.