The sleek President Wilson was one of a pair of ocean liners built and launched in 1947 at the Bethlehem shipyard at Alameda, Calif., that introduced new standards of luxury on the transpacific route linking San Francisco with the Far East.
The 610-foot, 15,546 grt. liner sailed for American President Lines from 1948 to 1973 and was one of a pair of passenger ships that were the country’s first post-war liners and the largest, to date, ever built on the Pacific Coast.
President Wilson – and sistership President Cleveland – were the last of ten P2-type ships built at the Alameda yard, the others being completed as naval transports. Over a year, the liner was reconfigured to carry 550 passengers in three classes – first, tourist and economy, and sailed on its maiden voyage on May 1, 1948.
The gleaming liner proved to be extremely popular offering passengers handsomely finished, spacious, and fully air-conditioned accommodations.
In fact, the ship was so popular that neither ship ever carried tourist-class passengers as the demand for first-class passage was so great that the tourist-class accommodations had to designated first-class.
As the years passed, travel by air, increasing operational costs, and dwindling government subsidies eventually spelled the end of the transpacific and transatlantic passenger liner trades, and APL’s shift to focus on strengthening its container operations led to the company to end its transpacific passenger liner service in the mid-1970s.
President Wilson is shown above before she was sold in 1973 to Taiwan-based Oceanic Cruises Development Ltd. And renamed Oriental Empress to sail the Far East under the Panamanian flag.
In 1976, the once-proud liner was laid-up to swing at anchor for eight years before making her final voyage − a tow to a breaker’s yard in Taiwan.