SS Orontes was an Orient Steam Navigation Company ocean liner. Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness, England built her in 1929. She was the second Orient Line ships to be named after the Orontes River. The first was RMS Orontes, which had been scrapped in 1925.
Her sister ships were Orama, Orford, SS Oronsay (1925), and RMS Otranto (1925). Orontes was the last of the Orama class to be built. Great effort was taken to make her public rooms the best of the class.
Service
Orontes' maiden voyage was a Mediterranean cruise. From 1929 to 1940, she worked Orient Line's route between England and Australia. She carried the England cricket team on the way to the Bodyline tour in 1932.[1]
Orontes was a troopship from 1940 until 1947. In 1947 she repatriated German prisoners of war from Melbourne to Cuxhaven, Germany.
In 1947 she was refitted, and in 1948 she returned to Orient Line's route between England and Australia. In 1953 John I. Thornycroft & Company