USS Brandenburg was only briefly in the United States Navy. Brandenburg was a twin-screw, steel-hulled steamship completed in 1901 by Bremer Vulkan Aktiengesellschaft of Bremen-Vegesack, Germany, for the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line, of Bremen. She was allocated to the United States when the Allied powers parceled out Germany’s merchant marine after World War I, and was commissioned at Southend-on-Sea, England, on 9 May 1919, Lieutenant Commander Hiram L. Irwin in command.