This article describes a post-war "new 4 Aces" ship. A pre-war ship of the same name was a member of the original "4 Aces."
SS Exochorda was a 473-foot, 14,500-ton cargo liner in service with American Export Lines from 1948 to 1959. A member of the line's post-war quartet of ships, "4 Aces", Exochorda sailed regularly from New York on a Mediterranean route.[1] Originally built in 1944 as the military attack transport USS Dauphin (APA-97), the ship was extensively refurbished prior to her service as a passenger-cargo liner.[2] Following her service as a cruise liner, the vessel served as the floating dormitory ship for the students of Stevens Institute of Technology, a technological university, in Hoboken, NJ. At the end of her service life she was scrapped, in 1979.
After World War II, American Export Lines purchased four C3-class[3] Windsor-class attack transports built by Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp. at Sparrow's Point, Maryland, had them refitted as passenger-cargo liners, and placed them in service as the new "4 Aces."[4] USS Dauphin became Exochorda.
While in US Navy service from 1944 to 1948 Dauphin was awarded one battle star in the assault on and occupation of Okinawa and earned the Navy Occupation Service Medal for landing cargo and troops in Japan. She was present in Tokyo Bay for the Surrender Ceremony of World War II, 2 September 1945.[5]
Following the war, in November 1947, the ships were returned to dry dock at the Hoboken Yard of Bethlehem Steel Corporation for conversion into passenger cargo ships for American Export Lines. Dauphin became Exochorda of the post-war "4 Aces", taking her new name from her predecessor in the pre-war fleet.[6]