Leonard Wood was named for the Army officer Leonard Wood. Bethlehem Shipbuilding built her at Sparrow Point, Maryland, in 1922. Earlier names were Nutmeg State and Western World. The War Department purchased her in 1939, gave her this name, and ran her as an Army transport until the Navy took her on 3 June 1941. A Coast Guard crew commissioned her on 10 June, with Commander H. G. Bradbury in charge. On 1 February 1943 her hull number became APA-12. Her class was Harris.
After drills off North Carolina she left Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 10 November 1941. The reinforcements were routed past the Cape of Good Hope, toward British posts in the Far East. She landed troops at Bombay and at Singapore, then returned and in March 1942 entered the Philadelphia Navy Yard to be fitted as an attack transport. Alterations were done late in April. Chesapeake Bay work prepared the North African landing. On 24 October she departed Hampton Roads with nearly 1,900 men of the 3d Division. During the night of 7–8 November she closed the beaches at Fedhala, in French Morocco. Boats went ashore the next morning. She also provided gunfire support and picked up people from torpedoed sister ships. She remained in the forward line of transports until 12 November. By then submarines had sunk or damaged six Allied ships, and the transports still present finished their unloading at Casablanca. She sailed on 17 November and reached Norfolk on the 30th.
Repairs and more landing drills followed. On 3 June 1943 she sailed for Mers el Kebir, Algeria, arriving on 22 June, and on 5 July sortied with Task Group 65. Four days later waves started ashore in a sector about five and a half miles west of Socglitti, on Sicily. At dawn on the 10th a bomber's load fell 200 to 300 yards astern, and her gunners fired through the day, helping to knock down three planes. Cargo was off and damaged boats had been salvaged when she left for Norfolk on the 12th. She arrived on 4 August. Three weeks later she headed for San Francisco, took troops aboard, and reached Honolulu on 27 September.
She spent the rest of the war in the Pacific and was credited with seven amphibious landings. Cargo work in the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands proved its worth later. Eniwetok was an atoll she had helped take. On 29 May 1944 she left Pearl Harbor to help take Saipan and hold it. At Eniwetok, about three months after that atoll had been secured, she fueled, watered, and provisioned, then sailed on 11 June. Off Saipan on 15 June her boats were unloaded and clear in 49 minutes. Nine days offshore followed, sending cargo in and receiving casualties for hospital ships. She left on 24 June, called at Eniwetok, and was back at Pearl Harbor on 20 July. Transport and training runs then tied Pearl Harbor, Eniwetok, and Guadalcanal together. In September she sailed from Guadalcanal for Angaur, in the Palau group, landed troops, finished unloading on 21 September, and left for Manus on 27 September.
Manus was a brief stop for fuel, provisions, and another load of troops. On 12 October she sailed toward the Philippines. Off Leyte on 20 October she got troops and cargo ashore quickly and was bound for Palau ten hours later. Further Philippine operations took a week to prepare. She left Sansapor, New Guinea, on 30 December 1944 for Lingayen Gulf. Suicide planes struck at the formation, and her guns helped bring one down. On 9 January 1945 she unloaded at Lingayen while still shooting at aircraft, and she departed the same day for Leyte. Mindoro on 9 February was her last assault landing. Men and cargo were clear in under five hours. San Francisco was next, by way of Leyte, Ulithi, and Pearl Harbor, and she arrived on 27 March.
Yard work there led to three long hauls, two ending at Manila and one at Tokyo, linking home ports with the far Pacific. On 22 March 1946 the Coast Guard crew left the ship. She was decommissioned that day and redelivered to the Army at Seattle, pending a turn-over to the War Shipping Administration. Consolidated Builders, Inc. bought her to scrap on 20 January 1948. Eight battle stars were awarded.