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| Marseille 1946. The start of S/S Ulua's story is the crossing Atlantic from the USA to the Mediterranean in 1946. After passing Gibraltar she headed to Marseille to be rebuilt to accommodate hundreds of Holocaust survivors. |
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| In Marseille, structures were added to Ulua´s afterdeck to increase carrying capacity. It altered her silhouette which can be easily seen in the photos after Ulua left Marseille. In place of the flat afterdeck, a kind of poop deck was built. That deck formed the roof of a new cabin built in the rear. Mediterranean, February 1947. |
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| The start of S/S Ulua's story is the crossing Atlantic from the USA to the Mediterranean in 1946. After passing Gibraltar she headed to Marseille to be rebuilt. Original map used 1946-1947 provided by the sons of Captain of the Ulua ?. |
USCGC Unalga (WPG-53) was a Miami-class cutter that served in the United States Revenue Cutter Service and later the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy. The early part of her career was spent patrolling the Pacific coast of the United States and the Bering Sea. After 1931 she did patrol work off Florida and in the Caribbean.
Unalaga was decommissioned and turned over to the War Shipping Administration on the 10th of October 1945 and was sold on 19 July 1946. When sold in 1946 Unalga was renamed Ulua. S/S Ulua was bought to be used for moving Jewish Holocaust Survivors from Europe to Eretz Israel - Palestine.
The start of S/S Ulua's "Jewish story" was the crossing Atlantic from the USA to the Mediterranean in 1946. On October 15, 1946, S/S Ulua sailed from Baltimore to Ponta Delgada in the Azores, where fuel was loaded. This part of the trip took approximately 10 days. Thereafter, she left Ponta Delgada in the Azores, passed Gibraltar, and headed to Marseille to be rebuilt. This second part of the trip took probably one week.
S/S Ulua spent 7 weeks being retrofitted in Marseille and was renamed Haim Arlosoroff חיים ארלוזורוב. However, the new name, Haim Arlosoroff was never painted on the ship. Gad Hilb, took over as Captain on Haim Arlosoroff/Ulua.
In Marseille, structures were added to her after deck to increase carrying capacity, altering her silhouette that can be easily seen in the photos after Ulua left Marseille. In place of the flat afterdeck, a kind of poop deck was built. That deck formed the roof of a new cabin built in the rear. Several of the Haganah ships were rebuilt in that way.
Also, extra fuel tanks were added. Almost all interior walls were demolished to expand her interior, and wooden floors and tiers of wooden bunks were added to accommodate a thousand passengers. Bunks were similar to the ones the future passengers were already familiar with from the concentration camps.
From Marseille, she sailed with legal credentials, plus a cargo of four carloads of Canadian lumber, canned water, rations, bedding, 2,500 life preservers, 100 fire pumps, mess kits, and a few obstetrical packs. S/S Ulua sailed first east to the port of La Ciotat in France. It was probably to fool British intelligence that was watching the traffic in numerous Mediterranean Harbour. Thus, to stop the transfers of Holocaust survivors from Europe to Eretz Israel.
On December 31, 1946, S/S Ulua (Haim Arlosoroff, חיים ארלוזורוב) sailed from La Ciotat. She passed again Gibraltar and continued up to Sweden by way of the Skagerrat and Kattagat
