Clarendon served as an attack transport of the Gilliam class, APA-72. Consolidated Steel built her at Wilmington. She was launched on 12 September 1944 and commissioned on 14 December 1944.
Her hull was fitted out to carry troops, landing boats, and the stores an assault beach would need in its first days. Her wartime employment came off Okinawa in the closing days of April 1945.
From 26 April through 30 April 1945 she lay in the Okinawa anchorage and sent combat cargo over the side. The boats ran between ship and shore across those five days, and the cargo was the work she did there.
On 28 April enemy aircraft came toward the anchorage. Gunfire from Clarendon drove them away. That pass, and the cargo days around it, were her fight off the island.
She left commission on 9 April 1946. One battle star stands on the wartime record for the Okinawa duty.