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 two Navy doctors from the Philippines that were already among passengers being evacuated from the war zone that had now reached Hawaii. The ship reached San Francisco on 25 December. On 12 January 1942 the first large convoy, including the large former ocean liners "President Coolidge" and , to Australia after Pearl Harbor departed the United States carrying troops, supplies, ammunition and weapons, including P-40 fighters intended for the Philippines and Java with fifty of the planes carried by "President Coolidge" and "Mariposa". Arriving Melbourne on 1 February in "President Coolidge", along with supplies and munitions not intended for