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SS ''Kronprinz Wilhelm'' was a German passenger liner built for the Norddeutscher Lloyd, a former shipping company now part of Hapag-Lloyd, by the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin, in 1901. She took her name from Crown Prince Wilhelm, son of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, and was a sister ship of . She had a varied career, starting off as a world-record-holding passenger liner, then becoming an auxiliary warship from 1914–1915 for the Imperial German Navy, sailing as a commerce raider for a year, and then interned in the United States when she ran out of supplies. When the U.S. entered World War I, she was seized and served as a United States Navy troop transport until she was decommissioned and turned over to the United States Shipping Board, where she remained in service until she was scrapped in 1923. ==German passenger liner (1901–1914)== ''Kronprinz Wilhelm'' was launched on 30 March 1901 and started her transatlantic maiden voyage on 17 September 1901 from Bremerhaven via Southampton and Cherbourg to New York. She was one of the fastest and most luxurious liners on the North Atlantic and stayed on that run until 1914. The ship had a Marconi telegraph,〔''Berliner Tageblatt'', Sunday 16 February 1902, p. 1〕 electric central heating and 1,900 electric lamps on board.〔Robert Schachner: ''Das Tarifwesen in der Personenbeförderung der transozeanischen Dampfschiffahrt'', G. Braun Verlag, 1904, p. 52〕 About 60 electric motors worked bridge cranes, fans, elevators, refrigerators and auxiliary machinery. ''Kronprinz Wilhelm'' had a control panel in the map room to close or open the 20 watertight doors.〔''E. und M. Elektrotechnik und Maschinenbau'' 20 Elektrotechnischer Verein Österreichs, Wien 1902. p. 117〕 If a door was closed, this was shown by a lamp. This security system alone needed of special cables and of normal cables. In September 1902, captained by August Richter, ''Kronprinz Wilhelm'' won the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing yet from Cherbourg to New York in a time of five days, 11 hours, 57 minutes, with an average speed of . In her time as a passenger liner, many famous international personalities sailed on ''Kronprinz Wilhelm''. These included the lawyer and politician Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler Jr. (1903),〔''The New York Times'', 24 December 1903, p. 3〕 the opera singer Lillian Blauvelt (1903),〔 the theatrical manager and producer Charles Frohman (1904); the inventor and author John Jacob Astor (1906) who died in 1912 aboard ; the ''most picturesque woman in America'', Rita de Acosta Lydig and her second husband, Captain Philip M. Lydig (1907);〔''The New York Times'', 31 October 1907, p. 3〕 the author Lloyd Osbourne (1907);〔 the star conductor Alfred Hertz (1909); the ballerina Adeline Genée (1908); the theatrical and opera producer Oscar Hammerstein together with the conductor Cleofonte Campanini and the opera singers Mario Sammarco, Giuseppe Taccani and Fernando Gianoli-Galetti (1909);〔''The New York Times'', 14 April 1909, p. 11〕〔''The New York Times'', 27 June 1909, p. C2〕 and the multi-millionaire, politician and lawyer Samuel Untermyer (1910). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「SS Kronprinz Wilhelm」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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