Second World War service
Empire Strength left Harland and Wolff in Belfast on 22 December 1942 and reached Liverpool the next day. On 13 January 1943 she began her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Sydney via the Panama Canal. It included three convoys: ON 161 from Liverpool to New York, NG 342 from there to Guantánamo Bay and GZ 22 from there to Cristóbal. After passing through the Panama Canal between 18 and 20 February the ship crossed the Pacific Ocean independently, reaching Sydney on 20 March. Records for the rest of the year are incomplete, but the ship seems to have continued to run between Australia and Britain via Panama. She ended 1943 sailing from Australia to Britain as usual via Panama, Guantánamo Bay and New York. She left Melbourne on 12 December and reached Cardiff on 21 February.[2]
Empire Strength spent the rest of 1944 shipping frozen meat from Buenos Aires to Britain and the Mediterranean. Her voyages in and near European and Mediterranean waters were mostly in convoys, but her movements in or near South American waters were mostly independent and unescorted. For the first trip she was in Buenos Aires 17–25 April, called at Freetown, Sierra Leone 9–11 May and then spent a fortnight on convoys in the Mediterranean calling at Gibraltar, Algiers, Malta, Augusta and Taranto, and returning via Casablanca to Buenos Aires, where she was in port 3–22 August. She then took her second cargo of Argentinian frozen meat from via Freetown to England, arriving at the end of September. For her third cargo she was in Buenos Aires from 16 November to 4 December and took it via Gibraltar to Haifa, where she was in port 4–8 January 1945.[2]
In 1945 Empire Strength returned to Australia, sailing from Haifa via the Suez Canal, Port Sudan and Aden and reaching Fremantle on 13 February. She called at Port Pirie, Adelaide and Port Lincoln before crossing the Tasman Sea to New Zealand, where she called at Wellington and New Plymouth. On 22 March she left New Plymouth for England, going via the Panama Canal, Charleston, New York and Convoy HX 354 to Liverpool and reaching London on 19 May. On 11 August she left London for New York, where she arrived on 24 August. She was still in port when Japan surrendered on 2 September. Six days later she left for the Philippines via the Panama Canal, reaching Manila on 21 October. On 16 November she left for New Zealand, where she was in Auckland 2–6 December and New Plymouth 8–21 December.[2]
