The Gilberts are the atolls southeast of the Marshalls, where Marines and soldiers landed at Tarawa and Makin in November 1943. Todd-Pacific at Tacoma launched the escort carrier on 20 July 1944. Mrs. Edwin D. McMorries sponsored her. Captain L. R. Rice commissioned her on 5 February 1945.
After shakedown she left San Diego on 12 April for exercises in Hawaiian waters, and on 2 May she sailed with an escort-carrier force that closed Okinawa on 21 May. From 24 to 31 May her aircraft bombed and strafed concrete dugouts, troop concentrations, and ammunition and fuel dumps. In the days that followed they worked over outlying airfields and installations. Five of her Marine pilots were killed.
She left Okinawa on 16 June, replenished at San Pedro Bay, and went on to Balikpapan. On 1 July she gave air cover to the Australians landing there and stayed four days, attacking targets ashore. She was back at Leyte on 6 July. On 29 July she left San Pedro Bay to screen the logistic ships that were replenishing the Third Fleet along the coast of Japan. On 15 August, on that station, the order came to cease firing. After replenishment at Okinawa she left on 14 October to show air strength during the occupation of Formosa by the Chinese 70th Army, then went home by Saipan and Pearl Harbor and reached San Diego on 4 December 1945.
She stayed in port until 21 January 1946 and then sailed for Norfolk, where she was decommissioned on 21 May 1946. She received three battle stars. Towed to Philadelphia in November 1949, she was recommissioned on 7 September 1951, served in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and was decommissioned at Boston on 15 January 1955. On 22 June 1963 the Navy renamed her Annapolis and fitted her as a major communications relay ship.