The S/S Homeric was one of the three German war reparations ships which White Star acquired in the early 1920's. Launched at the F. Schihau yard in Danzig in 1913 as Norddeutscher Lloyd's Columbus (1), the ship was laid up, unfinished, for the duration of World War I. Ceded to Britain in 1919 and purchased by White Star in 1920. She arrived in England in January 1922 and was given the name Homeric, which White Star had previously assigned to a 33,000 ton ship which was never built due to the War. Her sister ship was laid down as the Hindenburg, and was completed in 1922. It it was then decided to name that ship Columbus (2) instead of Hindenburg.