The 12,036 GRT steamship Orsova was built at the John Brown & Company shipyard in Clydebank near Glasgow and was launched on November 7, 1908. The ship, 162.76 meters long and 18.89 meters wide, had two funnels, two masts and two propellers, and was powered by two eight-cylinder quadruple expansion steam engines that allowed a speed of 18 knots. The ship was designed to carry 290 passengers in the first, 126 in the second and 660 in the third class. In addition to the dining room and the smoking room, first-class passengers had a music salon, a lounge, a reading and writing salon, a veranda café, several bars and spacious promenade decks . There was also an electrically operated elevator .
In April 1915 she was converted to a troop transport , but in 1916 she also made two civil trips to Australia. She transported Australian supplies to Egypt and Europe . On March 14, 1917, she was torpedoed near the Eddystone lighthouse by an unknown submarine , but was set aground at Cawsend Bay. The Orsova was towed to Devonport and repaired there. On November 22, 1919, she resumed commercial passenger and mail traffic on the London – Sydney – Brisbane route. In 1933 she was converted into a single class ship.
On June 20, 1936, she ran for the last time in London for Australia and on October 21 of the same year she arrived in Bo'ness (Scotland), where she was scrapped.
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