SS President Coolidge motors ranged from a tenth horsepower to the 13,250 horsepower main motors. The ship had refrigerated cargo space. "President Coolidge" was initially designed for 350 first class, 150 "special" or intermediate class passengers with space for 1,260 passengers of all classes and a crew of 300. The ship was launched on 21 February 1931 after Mrs. Calvin C. Coolidge broke a bottle of water that came from a brook on the Coolidge farm in Vermont on the bow. "President Hoover" and "President Coolidge" ran between San Francisco and Manila via Kobe and Shanghai, and some round the World voyages that
SS President Coolidge and the War Shipping Administration assigned her to the US Navy. After her conversion, "President Coolidge" resumed service in the South West Pacific theatre. In the spring of 1942, escorted by the cruiser , she took Manuel Quezon, President of the Philippines from Melbourne to San Francisco. In her first few months of service "President Coolidge"s ports of call included Melbourne, Wellington, Auckland, Bora Bora, and Suva. On October 6, she left homeport of San Francisco for New Caledonia and the New Hebrides. Embarked were the 172nd Infantry Combat Team, 43rd Division, and a harbor defense unit intended to protect