Немецкий лайнер «Виндхук» и его превращение в американский транспортный корабль.

{|

166.97 m registered
|Ship beam=22.10 m
|Ship height=
|Ship draft=7.92 m
|Ship depth=9.60 m
|Ship hold depth=
|Ship decks=3
|Ship power=14,000 SHP was a German cargo liner that was converted to a United States Navy troop transport during the Second World War. Her original name was Windhuk.

Windhuk was built at the Blohm+Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany and completed in 1937. She was one of a pair of sister ships completed that year for Deutsche Ost Afrika Linie (DOAL), the other being TS Pretoria. In peacetime DOAL operated Windhuk mainly between Hamburg, South West Africa and South Africa. Reports that she operated as a German raider in the Second World War are said to be false. (Her sister ship, Pretoria, later served as a German hospital ship during the closing stages of the War.)

After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, the Windhuk risked being trapped in Cape Town and sought a means for passage back to Germany. The first leg of her northbound voyage would take her to Lobito, Angola, from there to Buenos Aires as a preferred destination. However this was not possible due to the actions of the pocket battleship Graf Spee. Instead after two months at sea, evading the Royal Navy, the Windhuk set course for Santos, São Paulo, Brazil. To enter the port on 7 December 1939 the crew had renamed the vessel the Santos Maru, repainting the ship at sea and flew a hand crafted Japanese flag. Once dockside the German flag was raised and the borrowed name painted out.

The Associated Press reported that on 15 January 1942 the German consul at Santos, Brazil, turned over the Windhuk to the Brazilian government. Windhuk was still in Santos on 22 August 1942 when Brazil broke ties with Germany and interned the ship. When her crew learned that she was to be interned, they sabotaged most of her machinery. They poured concrete into the main turbine engines. They drained the boilers of water and then lit the furnaces, which melted the boilers beyond repair. They cut her main shafts and bearings with high temperature metal cutting torches. They damaged all electric generators, refrigeration equipment, steering gear, small motors, etc. beyond repair. However, they made no attempt to scuttle the ship. Windhuk remained in Santos until January 1943 when she was towed to Rio de Janeiro for repairs. In 1942 the US Government bought Windhuk from Brazil and sent 200 US Navy personnel to Brazil to fit her with new diesel engines. The work was not completed until March 1943, when she made a thirty day voyage to Norfolk, Virginia for further work and conversion to a troopship. When she arrived in Norfolk, she had been stripped of most of her elegant furnishings such as mahogany and teak wood paneling. She was refitted as a troop transport, which took about a year to rectify all the sabotage by the German crew. They were used as a workforce, and during times off were able to play soccer and perform musical presentations. Many married Brazilian women and decided to stay in Brazil, which has had a significant German minority since early in the 19th century. After the war, some of the remaining crew members, especially older ones, returned to Germany. One group of former crew who stayed in Brazil after the war opened a restaurant in São Paulo named after the ship, serving dishes from her former passenger menus.