Completed in September 1906 at the Harland & Wolff Ltd shipyards in Belfast, Northern Ireland, under the order of Hamburg-Amerika Linie (Hapag), Hamburg. It operated under the name SALAMANCA and had a displacement of 5,970 t, a length of 119.5 meters, a width of 15.3 meters and a draft of 7.8 meters. Made with steel hull, it was propelled by a triple expansion motor, making it reach the speed of 12 knots. It was in the Brazilian port of Cabedelo, in Paraíba when the First World War broke out, which motivated its retention and subsequent confiscation by the Brazilian Government - June 1, 1917 - when Brazil broke diplomatic relations with the Empire German, due to the sinking of Brazilian ships by the navy of that country. In that same year, she is renamed ALEGRETE, in tribute to the homonymous city of Rio Grande do Sul, and began to be operated, from 1927, by Lloyd Brasileiro. Between 1936 and 1940, she serves as a training ship for the Brazilian Merchant Navy.
On June 1, 1942, the ship, under Captain Eurico Gomes de Sousa and loaded with coffee, cocoa, 5,000 boxes of nuts and castor oil, sailed between the islands of Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and Grenadines, in the Caribbean Sea, when, around five in the afternoon, the captain realized that he was being followed by a submarine, when he saw a periscope that stood out in the distance. At 17:45 local time, the ship was hit by the first torpedo fired by U-156, commanded by Captain-of-Corvette Werner Hartenstein, at port level 5. Then the procedures were done so that the crew of 64 men - there were no passengers aboard - left the ship. The crew escaped in the four existing boats, after which two more torpedoes were fired as well as the ship was shelled 18 times, unsurprisingly, succumbed in flames after 3 hours.
Settled in the lifeboats, the crew faced all sorts of bad weather: rough seas, strong winds, icy winds at night, scorching sun for most of the day, and poor food and drinking water. The next day, the first boat arrived in Port of Spain Trinidad and Tobago; the second washed out in La Guaira, Venezuela; the third landed in the Island of the Blanquilla, also in Venezuela. These last survivors reported having been surrounded by all the care of the locals. The 19 men of the fourth boat were rescued by the American destroyer USS TARBEL. There were no deaths, despite burns and other injuries sustained in the attack.