SS Albania was a cargo liner laid down in 1914 by Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Ltd. Greenock, Scotland for the Cunard Line. Owing to the First World War, she wasn't completed until 1920. Designed to maximize cargo capacity, passenger accommodations were limited to the shelter and "tween" decks. Originally intended for the Liverpool New York run, she was transferred in April of 1922 to the Canadian route. Ultimately the vessel proved a disappointment for Cunard, being too small to operate effectively as a passenger liner and too big for a freighter, and was laid up in 1925 until purchased in 1930 by the Italian company Liberia Triestina who renamed her SS California. She was converted in a hospital ship in 1935.