An item reported that according to the correspondent of Wolff at Amsterdam the Dutch steamship Statendam (1) of the Holland Amerika Lijn was seized by the British cabinet and months ago commissioned as the British auxiliary cruiser Seahorse. The shareholders of the shipping company asked the board what the ship exactly was used before. The board however did not give a satisfying answer probably to avoid disturbing the relationship with the British cabinet. The newspaper Maasbode however reported that the board claimed never to have received such a question. She herself hardly knew anything dealing with the ship except that she was seized by the British cabinet. Probably she was still not commissioned but if so the board expected a use as transport rather than as auxiliary cruiser.
Note
1. Op 11 July 1912 laid down at the shipyard of Harland and Wollf at Belfast, launched on 9 July 1914, in August that year was the building temporarily stopped caused by the outbreak of the First World War. The British cabinet seized on 7 July two years later with the intention to convert her into a troop transport. First intention was to hand her over to the Cunard Line but finally was she renamed Justicia and on 7 April 1917 handed over to the White Star Line able to transport 4,300 soldiers. Sunk on 20 July the next year after being torpedoed by the German submarines UB-64 on the 19th and the 20th by the UB-124.
