The tanker "LANGAGER" was built in 1930 under yard number 397 at the Robert Duncan & Co. Ltd. shipyard in Port Glasgow for the Norwegian shipowner Westfal-Larsen & Co. A/S, Bergen. She was launched on 25 July of the same year. She presented a loading capacity of 14,500 DWT as well as 9,555 GRT and 5,514 NRT. Her length was 144.31 m (loa); her beam 19.62 m and her depth 11.07 m (summer draft). Call sign. LCKY. There is hardly anything known about her fate till World War II. On 21 June 1941 the Vichy troops seized the tanker in the Algerian port Oran and in November 1942 the German navy took her over and gave her to the company Mittelmeer Reederei GmbH in Hamburg for operation. The tanker received meanwhile the name "TONI III". Call sign: ????. On 17 August 1944 the tanker was send to the bottom in Port-Bou.

In 1947 the wreck could be lifted and sold under her initial name "LANGAGER" to the Swiss company Roger de Perrot & A. Bourquin at Neuchâtel. The new owners gave her the name "NEUCHÂTEL" and put her in service under Swiss flag on 9 February 1950. Her call sign was HBDD. Since 1954 Roger de Perrot managed the tanker "NEUCHÂTEL" alone, but sold her already on 1 November 1954 to the German company Hugo Stinnes Transozean Schiffahrts GmbH at Hamburg. The new owner named first the ship "TRANSOZEAN", but after a year the name was however changed into "TRANSOZEAN HUGO STINNES". Call sign DIGV.