Oregon Shipbuilding Corp. in Portland put this Haskell attack transport in the water on 30 October 1944, under a Maritime Commission contract. Mrs. James H. Bond was the sponsor. Captain E. F. May took command at commissioning on 26 November 1944.
Shakedown was short. Seattle on 27 January 1945 was where troops and cargo came aboard, and on 1 February she left in convoy for Pearl Harbor with reinforcements as the Pacific fighting neared its height. Eniwetok was a stop. At Iwo Jima on 13 March she anchored only long enough to unload, then on 15 March made for Guam and took on more than 400 marine casualties. Pearl Harbor added further casualties on 29 March. San Francisco was the arrival on 22 May 1945.
By June, Okinawa was already far along, the last island step on the way to Japan. She sailed on 6 June carrying troops and cargo, called at Ulithi, and reached Okinawa on 24 July. Air attack stayed a constant threat while passengers and cargo went off. On 6 August she headed back to Ulithi. News that Japan had surrendered reached her at that great staging base.
Occupation work started at once. She was at Leyte on 21 August, loaded troops, and on 8 September put them ashore at Yokohama with the forces that arrived early. Allied prisoners of war were next, carried to Guam and landed on 23 September. Marines for China's occupation, and to help steady that unsettled country, landed at Tsingtao after she sailed on 11 October. Manila followed, then Haiphong in Indochina on 2 November. Two hundred Nationalist Chinese troops boarded there for Chinwangtao and landed on 12 November to share in the occupation. After Taku she reached Sasebo on 4 December 1945 and joined Magic Carpet, the rush to bring veterans home.
California was the return. She sailed on 7 December and made San Diego on 22 December, then ran once more to Pearl Harbor and back. Panama was the route when she left on 16 February 1946 for Norfolk. Arrival on 13 March led to decommissioning on 14 May, and two days afterward the Maritime Commission had her again. The National Defense Reserve Fleet berthed her on the James River near Norfolk. One battle star stands on her wartime record.