Exodus 1947 was a packet steamship that was built in the United States in 1928 as President Warfield for the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. From her completion in 1928 until 1942 she carried passengers and freight across the Chesapeake Bay between Norfolk, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland.
From 1942 President Warfield served in the Second World War as a barracks and training ship for the British Armed Forces. In 1944 she was commissioned into the United States Navy as USS President Warfield (IX-169), a station and accommodation ship for the D-Day landing on Omaha Beach.
In 1947, she was renamed Exodus 1947 to take part in Aliyah Bet. She took 4,515 Jewish migrants from France to Mandatory Palestine. Most were Holocaust survivors who had no legal immigration certificates for Palestine. The Royal Navy boarded her in international waters and took her to Haifa, where ships were waiting to return the migrants to refugee camps in Europe.
Pusey and Jones built President Warfield in Wilmington, Delaware, as hull number 399. She was launched in 1927 and completed in 1928. She was a sister ship of the Baltimore Steam Packet Co's State of Maryland and State of Virginia, which had been completed in 1922 and 1923 respectively.
The ship was originally to be called Florida. However, S. Davies Warfield, who was President of the Baltimore Steam Packet Co and its parent company, the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, died while she was being built, so she was named President Warfield in his honor.
Like her sisters, President Warfield's registered length was 320.0 ft (97.5 m), her beam was 56.6 ft (17.3 m) and her depth was 16.9 ft (5.2 m). As built, her tonnages were 1,814 GRT and 706 NRT. She had a single propeller, powered by a quadruple expansion steam engine.
The Baltimore Steam Packet Co registered President Warfield in Baltimore. Her US official number was 227753, and until 1933 her code letters were MOVN.
Until 1942 President Warfield and her sisters worked a packet route on the Chesapeake Bay between Norfolk, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland. She was built as a coal-burner, but in 1933 she was converted to oil fuel. In 1934 her code letters were superseded by the new call sign KGQC.
President Warfield was modernised with the installation of a fire sprinkler system in 1938, and wireless direction finding and ship-to-shore telephone in 1939.
On July 12, 1942, the War Shipping Administration (WSA) acquired President Warfield and several other US East Coast packet ships for the British Ministry of War Transport. Having been built only for service in the relatively sheltered waters of the Chesapeake Bay, President Warfield needed to be altered to cross the North Atlantic safely. Her superstructure was cut back, and a "turtle-back" covering was built onto the forward end of her superstructure to withstand heavy seas. She was fitted with cargo ship masts and derricks. She was fitted with one three-inch 12-pounder gun on her stern as main armament, plus four 20mm anti-aircraft guns. She was repainted in plain gray. The alterations increased President Warfield's tonnages to 4,273 GRT and 2,611 NRT.
In September 1942 President Warfield sailed to Britain via Boston, Halifax, Nova Scotia and St John's, Newfoundland. From Boston onward she was escorted in convoys. Coast Lines of Liverpool, England, provided British Merchant Navy crews for President Warfield and the other coastal packet ships to bring them from the US to Britain. A crew commanded by Captain JR Williams took over President Warfield, and on September 21, 1942, she left St John's in Convoy RB 1 to Liverpool.
Convoy RB 1 officially comprised eight merchant ships, escorted by two Royal Navy destroyers: HMS Vanoc and Veteran. On the afternoon of September 25 a U-boat wolf pack attacked the convoy about 800 nautical miles (1,500 km) west of Ireland. U-216 fired a spread of four torpedoes, two of which hit RB 1's commodore ship—the 4,989 GRT packet ship Boston—sinking her with the loss of 17 of her crew. HMS Veteran and the packet ships New Bedford and Northland rescued 49 survivors.
The 3,117 GRT packet ship Southland twice sighted a periscope, but each time drove off the submarine with rapid fire from her 12-pounder gun. A torpedo was fired at President Warfield, but the packet boat quickly turned parallel to it and the torpedo passed by about 30 feet (9 m) off her port beam. Two minutes later President Warfield sighted a submarine near her port quarter and opened fire with her 12-pounder. HMS Veteran joined in the action with depth charges.
Just before midnight, U-96 fired a spread of two torpedoes, hitting Boston's 4,989 GRT sister ship, New York, which was the vice-commodore's ship. 38 men were killed, the survivors abandoned ship, and an hour and a half later U-91 sank her drifting hulk. HMS Veteran stopped to rescue survivors but U-404 torpedoed the destroyer, sinking her with all hands in the early hours of September 26.
The convoy dispersed but the attack continued. Late on the evening of September 26, U-619 torpedoed the steamship Yorktown, sinking her with the loss of 18 men. Two days later the destroyer HMS Sardonyx rescued 42 survivors. President Warfield escaped further attack, and reached Belfast, Northern Ireland independently. Other surviving ships from the convoy reached Derry and Greenock.
The convoy lost a total of three packet ships, one destroyer and 131 men, but the other five ships safely reached the British Isles. Posthumous decorations were awarded to some of the officers lost. In May 1943 the master and chief engineer of each of the five surviving ships, including Captain Williams and his Chief Engineer, was made an OBE.
From Belfast, President Warfield continued to England, where she moored in the River Torridge at Instow on the north coast of Devon. There she served as a Combined Operations training and barracks ship for the Royal Marines and Commandos. She provided accommodation for 105 officers and 500 other ranks.
In July 1943, the British Government returned President Warfield to US control. On May 21, 1944, she was commissioned into the US Navy as USS President Warfield, with the pennant number IX-169. In July she served as a station and accommodations ship off Omaha Beach on the coast of Normandy.