page_title: SS Lurline (1932)
section_title: Lurline (1932)
hierarchical_section_title: SS Lurline (1932) / Ships named Lurline of the Matson Line / Lurline (1932)
caption_attribution_description: Description:&#160;Lurline outbound Creator:&#160;Cushman, Charles Weever, 1896-1972 &lt;a href="http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/results/detail.do?pnum=P08015" rel="noreferrer nofollow"&gt;View source image or order reproductions&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;a href="http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/archives/cushman/rights" rel="noreferrer nofollow"&gt;More information on the commercial rights for this photo&lt;/a&gt;. Part of&#160;&lt;a href="http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/cushman/" rel="noreferrer nofollow"&gt;Charles W. Cushman Collection&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=93/" rel="noreferrer nofollow"&gt;Indiana University, Bloomington. University Archives&lt;/a&gt;. Brought to you by&#160;&lt;a href="http://imlsdcc.grainger.uiuc.edu/" rel="noreferrer nofollow"&gt;IMLS Digital Collections and Content&lt;/a&gt;. Unrestricted access; use with attribution.
context_page_description: SS Lurline was the third Matson Lines vessel to hold that name and the last of four fast and luxurious ocean liners that Matson built for the Hawaii and Australasia runs from the West Coast of the United States. Lurline's sister ships were SS Malolo, SS Mariposa and SS Monterey. Lurline served as a troopship in World War II operated by War Shipping Administration agents serving Army troop transport requirements.
  Rechristened in 1963 by Chandris Lines as the RHMS Ellinis, the ship became one of the most important luxury cruise ships on the Australian and New Zealand services. She operated in Australasia and Oceania until 1980.
context_section_description: In 1932, the last of four smart liners designed by William Francis Gibbs and built for the Matson Lines' Pacific services was launched:  SS Lurline christened on 12 July 1932 in Quincy, Massachusetts, by Lurline Matson Roth (who had also christened her father's 1908 steamship Lurline as a young woman of 18). On 12 January 1933, SS Lurline left New York City bound for San Francisco via the Panama Canal on her maiden voyage, thence to Sydney and the South Seas, returning to San Francisco on 24 April 1933. She then served on the express San Francisco to Honolulu service with Malolo, with whom she shared appearance.
  Famous aviator Amelia Earhart rode Lurline from Los Angeles to Honolulu with her Lockheed Vega airplane secured on deck during December 22–27, 1934. The voyage prepared her for the record-breaking Honolulu-to-Oakland solo flight she made in January 1935.
  Lurline was half-way from Honolulu to San Francisco on 7 December 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The ship's alleged reception of radio signals from the Japanese fleet became part of the Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy theory. She made her destination safely, travelling at maximum speed, and soon returned to Hawaii with her Matson sisters Mariposa and Monterey in a convoy laden with troops and supplies.
  She spent the war providing similar services, often voyaging to Australia, and once transported Australian Prime Minister John Curtin to America to confer with President Roosevelt. Wartime events put Lurline at risk. Royal Australian Air Force trainee pilot Arthur Harrison had been put on watch without adequate training. "A straight line of bubbles extending from away out on the starboard side of the ship to across the bow. I had never seen anything quite like it, but it reminded me of bubbles behind a motorboat. I called to the lad on watch on the next gun forward. A few seconds later the ship went into a hard 90 degree turn to port. We RAAF trainees received a severe reprimand from the captain for not reporting the torpedo. Anyway, it was a bad miss."
  Lurline was returned to Matson Lines in mid-1946 and extensively refitted at Bethlehem-Alameda Shipyard in Alameda, California, in 1947 at the then huge cost of US$20 million. She resumed her San Francisco-to-Honolulu service from 15 April 1948 and regained her pre-war status as the Pacific Ocean's top liner.
  Her high occupancy rates during the early 1950s caused Matson to also refit her sister ship Monterey (renaming her SS Matsonia) and the two liners provided a first class-only service between Hawaii and the American mainland from June 1957 to September 1962, mixed with the occasional Pacific cruise. Serious competition from jet airliners caused passenger loads to fall in the early 1960s and Matsonia was laid up in late 1962.
caption: Lurline outbound through the Golden Gate (1955)
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