The ship was built by Gourlay Brothers & Co. of Dundee as a passenger/cargo ship for Wm. H. Müller & Company's Batavier Line, and launched as Batavier IV in 1902. Of, and with a length of 260feet, she was powered by a 3-cylinder triple expansion engine, producing 2300ihp to give a maximum speed of . The ship carried 75 first class and 28 second class passengers, and up to 325 in steerage.[1]
In service on the daily Rotterdam to London route, after the invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940 the ship was chartered by the British Ministry of War Transport[2] and was sent to Guernsey to evacuate children in anticipation of the German occupation of the Channel Islands.[3] In June she was transferred to the Royal Navy, and commissioned in September 1940 as HMS Eastern Isles, being renamed HMS Western Isles in March 1941.[2]
She served as the flagship of Western Approaches Command's Anti-Submarine Training School at Tobermory where from about July 1940 all escort ships intended for Atlantic convoy duty attended before being allowed to deploy. A noted depiction of the establishment and its commander is given (albeit in fictional form) in Nicholas Monsarrat's novel The Cruel Sea. The Training School was closed following the end of World War II in Europe.
In 1946 HMS Western Isles was sold to the Koninklijke Marine ("Royal Netherlands Navy"). She was converted into a submarine warfare training ship and renamed HNLMS Zeearend (A 892). She was finally decommissioned in October 1970, struck from the Navy List in July 1971, and sold for scrapping in November 1972.[2]