She was launched in 1920 at the Hamburg shipyard of Blohm + Voss and entered service with the Deutsche Ost-Afrika Linie the following year. On 6 August 1936, 18 days after the start of the Spanish Civil War, the Usaramo arrived at Cadiz on a secret mission, with a load of 16 aircraft, including a single Ju 87 A-0 (the V4 prototype) with allocated serial number 29-1 that was assigned to the VJ/88, the experimental Staffel of the Condor Legion's fighter wing; along with 30 antiaircraft guns, ammunition and supplies that were hurriedly carried by train to Seville.[4]
In 1938, Austrian author Franziska Tausig acquired two tickets for the Usaramo, a ship that was supposed to be scrapped in Japan, which transported Jews to Shanghai on the way.
In October 1940, she was requisitioned by Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine and apparently used as an accommodation ship. On 10 December 1940 the ship was bombed and sunk at Bordeaux, was refloated but sunk again on 25 August 1944 during an airstrike in the Gironde estuary. The ship was lifted and scrapped after the end of the war.[5]