On the night of 6 July 1943, in the five-mile gulf between Kolombangara and New Georgia, Rear Admiral Walden L. Ainsworth's cruisers and destroyers met a Japanese destroyer force. Helena was sunk there. The escort carrier named for that gulf was laid down as Vermillion Bay and renamed Kula Gulf on 6 November 1943. Todd-Pacific at Tacoma laid her down on 16 December 1943. She was launched on 15 August 1944, sponsored by Miss Dorothy Mott, and completed at Portland by Willamette Iron and Steel. Captain J. W. Ring commissioned her at Portland on 12 May 1945.
After shakedown and night-carrier training off the west coast she left San Diego on 5 August 1945 for the Seventh Fleet. By way of Pearl Harbor and the Marshalls she reached Leyte Gulf on 14 September, after Japan had surrendered. For the next two months she patrolled the East China Sea out of Okinawa and shuttled planes between Saipan and Guam. On 17 November she left Guam with 600 veterans and reached San Francisco on 4 December.
Between 10 December and 10 January 1946 she returned to the Far East, embarked 1,520 veterans at Tientsin and Tsingtao, and reached San Diego on 26 January. She left San Francisco on 26 February, arrived at Norfolk on 16 March, and was decommissioned at Boston on 3 July 1946.
She was recommissioned at Boston on 15 February 1951. That later service was in the Atlantic: a cargo of airplanes to Casablanca, pilot training, and work on antisubmarine and helicopter tactics, including Marine landings at Vieques in 1955. She was decommissioned at Philadelphia on 15 December 1955 and redesignated AKV-8 on 7 May 1959.