For Christmas 1914, Alice Bailey, a seven-year-old from Kent, England, got a pair of stockings and a toy farm animal. Daisy Andrews, her two-year-old neighbor, was given a length of ribbon.

It may not seem much, but, with their fathers hundreds of miles away, fighting the bloody battles that would come to be known as the First World War, it was more than either of them had hoped for.

Their humble presents, listed alongside the names in hundred-year-old records and letters of thanks, were gifts from the United States, which had sailed thousands of miles from New York on a vessel dubbed The Santa Claus Ship.

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Sailing to town: The USS Jason, dubbed The Santa Claus ship, was stacked up with 5million presents and sailed from New York City to England, carrying festive cheer to the victims of war. It is pictured docking in Plymouth in 1914

Charity drive: Thousands around the country donated to the cause - spurred on by such contributions as this song in honor of the Christmas Ship - which shows an idealized version of the mission on the front. The blurb explained to children how an iron warship would actually be used

The cargo – a far cry from the coal it usually carried to fire the dreadnoughts of the U.S. Navy – included gloves, stockings, petticoats, sweets and nuts among its total of 5million presents, which together weighed 12,000 tons.

The ship, properly called the USS Jason, made its first transatlantic stop in Plymouth, Devon, where it unloaded its trove of gifts for children around Great Britain.

The presents were distributed by officials from charities including the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association (now know as SSAFA), who handed out the gifts starting with children whose father had been killed in battle or was missing, and refugee families from Belgium.

A 1914 SSAFA report from Lowestoft, Suffolk, said: 'The Town Hall steps and landing were quite crowded with eager youngsters, among whom some 900 gifts, usually a garment and a toy, were distributed.'

Charity drive: This picture shows crowds of volunteers - including one, right, dressed as an elf - crammed the presents into crates for their journey across the Atlantic

The ship then continued its voyage on to brighten the Christmases of children in Belgium and other parts of Europe touched by the conflict, the magnitude of which was only starting to become clear.

The humanitarian mission was the result of a huge charity drive in the United States, which began with Chicago but inspired families all over the country to give some of what they had.

News of the ship reached Britain well in advance. A report in the September 22, 1914, edition of the Daily Mail read recounted how the plan 'spread in a few days throughout the Western and Eastern States, and is approved by the great officials in Washington.

Spreading the news: This September 1914 report in the UK's Daily Mail newspaper proclaimed the project

'They ask the children of America to be Santa Claus next Christmas for all those little boys and girls whose daddies died fighting for their country.

'"You can stretch out your hands," says the appeal, "across the sea bearing messages of love and hope and sympathy to the children of a war-ridden Continent - messages from fortunate America to unfortunate Europe.'

An advert for the scheme, from the McKinley Music Company in New York, which published a song promoting the scheme, was addressed directly to American children.

It said: 'Isn't this a glorious opportunity for you to help make some of these poor little children happy?

'Just think what it means when our good President Wilson, and his Secretary of the Navy Daniels, have arranged to let one of our own country's great warships be the Christmas Ship.

'It means that our government considers it very important for this great shipload of presents to cross the ocean in perfect safety, so that every present may be promptly delivered.

'There never was a Christmas Ship before! There may never be a Christmas Ship again! Here is a chance for you to be one of the givers and help make next Christmas the best that was ever known on earth!'

Jo Gunnell, a chairman for the Kent branch of SSAFA, said: 'It was a very striking gesture'.

'It was the moral support, as well as as the actual value of the gifts – though that shouldn't be underestimated, paltry as it may seem in this day and age.'

'There was a real bond between the countries then, as there continues to be today.'