SS West Maximus was a steel-hulled freighter built for the United States Shipping Board's emergency wartime construction program during World War I. Completed too late to see service in the war, West Maximus spent the interwar years in commercial service. After America's entry into World War II in December 1941, West Maximus participated in a number of wartime convoys. She was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-264 while sailing to the United States on 5 May 1943, a casualty of the convoy battle regarded as the turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic.