A county in Texas is the namesake. Mrs. Harry Fielding sponsored the Haskell attack transport. On a loan charter from the Maritime Commission, the Navy took her over on 23 November 1944, and Captain J. McDonald Smith commissioned her that same day.
Work out of San Pedro came first. She was back at Seattle on 25 January 1945, took more than 240 troops aboard, and on 1 February sailed for Honolulu. Drills off Maui followed. On 20 February 1945 she got underway in company with Transport Division 59.
On 14 March her anchor went down off the northeast side of Iwo Jima, an island lately secured. Units of the 4th Marine Division came aboard for a move toward the Philippines. From caves and crevices at the water's edge, small arms opened on the anchored ship at about 1,000 yards. She suffered neither hurt nor casualties, cleared on 20 March, and on 4 April put 1,618 passengers ashore at Pearl Harbor.
Hawaiian troop shuttles came next. Patients of the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Merchant Marine, officers and enlisted alike, were aboard when she left Honolulu, and San Francisco received them on 30 May 1945. She then shifted to Seattle. On 16 June, with 1,512 Army and Navy passengers, she sailed again, landed men at Honolulu and at Okinawa, and entered Guam on 14 August. Waiting there were nine hundred of the 6th Marine Division, officers and enlisted together, and eight correspondents.
The next day's sailing took her to a meeting, on 19 August, with units of the 3d Fleet for Japan's first occupation move. Her anchor went down in Tokyo Bay on 30 August 1945. Cargo and troops went ashore to occupy Yokosuka Naval Base, and the work stayed quiet. Task Unit 30.3.5 was her formation when she left the bay on 1 September, bound for Saipan to collect units of the 2d Marines for Nagasaki. She sailed from Saipan on 18 September, and those troops went ashore across 23 to 25 September.
Pacific lifts continued until 15 June 1946, when she departed Sasebo. The Canal Zone lay on the track to Norfolk, reached on 13 July. Decommissioning there came on 26 February 1947. The Atlantic Reserve Fleet kept her until 1 October 1958, the day her name was struck and the Maritime Commission received her. Wilmington, North Carolina, was the first reserve berth, and in October 1964 she moved to the James River in Virginia. One battle star was entered for her wartime record.