SS Narwik, formerly Empire Roamer, was a Polish general cargo ship built in 1941 to the order of the British government, as one of the Empire B type ships. In 1942, together with four others (Tobruk, Bałtyk, Białystok, Borysław - since 1950 Bytom),[1] it was transferred to the Polish Government in Exile for the Polish Merchant Navy. In Polish service, the name of the ship was changed to "Narwik" to commemorate the Polish contribution to the Battle of Narvik. The transferred ships formally became the property of GAL (Gdynia-America Shipping Lines), but they were chartered to the War Transport Administration. Narwik sailed under the Polish flag to 1972.
Empire Roamer was built by Charles Connell and Company in Glasgow and launched on 5 January 1942. On 11 March 1942 she was sold by Ministry of War Transport to Polish government, and was commissioned from the shipyard on that day. Her first captain was Tadeusz Niefiedowicz. On 17 March 1942 the ship went on her maiden voyage in a conwoy from Gourock to New York City. On 30 April she departed back for Cape Town, and then to Bombay, and back to Durban. On the way to Durban the crew spent several days fighting coal fire in bunkers, finally extinguished in the port.