Most of the passengers were Americans, many of whom were tourists clamouring to leave France before the war broke out. During the voyage, the passengers were not only inconvenienced by the overcrowded conditions, but their activities were limited because the ship sailed with her lights extinguished. Other ships were not so lucky. The "Île de France" arrived in New York harbor on September 9 and, while she was crossing the Atlantic Ocean, 16 vessels were sunk by torpedoes, mines, or gunfire. Once the "Île de France" was berthed at its New York pier, her career as a passenger ship was temporarily ended. Since the French were not anxious to return the ship to its homeland, she was towed to Staten Island by ten tugs and was laid up after special dredging that cost $30,000. Her crew of 800 persons was reduced to a security staff of 100 while she was inoperative for the next five months. Then during March 1940, commanded by the British Admiralty, to which it had been lent, the ship was loaded with 12,000 tons of war materials, submarine oil, tanks, shells, and several uncrated bombers that were stowed on the aft open decks. On 1 May 1940 she departed for Europe, veiled in gray and black. From there, she traveled to Singapore where, after the Fall of France, she was officially seized by the British. In 1941 she returned to New York and made several crossings from the northeast as a troop ship such as the one on February 14, 1944, sailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Greenock, Scotland, carrying among others the 814th Tank Destroyer Battalion. In August, 1942, the three-funnelled "Île de France" tied up alongside the Charl Malan Quay in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. She had been escorted part of the way by various RAF squadrons based on the West Coast of Africa, including No.204 Squadron on 13 June 1942. During one of her visits to the city she was subjected to one of the less happy events to befall this magnificent ship. Furniture, chandeliers, carpets, fittings, all the evidences of her former luxury, including hundreds of square feet of rare and beautiful panelling, were ruthlessly torn out and flung on the quayside as "she was gutted as thoroughly as a herring". A small party of workmen fitted the luxury liner out as a floating prisoner of war camp, "with festoons of barbed wire sprouting from her decks and disfiguring her graceful lines" as the ship was prepared for the task of bringing POWs back from north Africa.