Counties in Indiana, Ohio, and Oklahoma share the name of Noble (APA-218). Noah Noble, an early settler, is remembered in the Indiana county. John Noble, who headed the Interior Department from 1889 until 1893, is remembered in the Oklahoma county. She was the second Navy ship of the name. Permanente Metals at Richmond laid the keel on 20 July 1944 as a modified Victory ship. The Kaiser yard at Richmond finished her. Mrs. Maxine C. Jones sponsored the launch on 18 October 1944. The Navy acquired her on 27 November 1944 and commissioned her the same day, Commander Solomon S. Isquith in command.
Her boat group was the armament that mattered. It was meant to land troops and cargo on an enemy beach in a set order, and after that landing she could lift wounded men or prisoners. In January 1945 she steamed west to take part in the Okinawa campaign. When the war ended she helped carry released Allied prisoners from Korea to the Philippines, and she joined Magic Carpet in bringing servicemen back to the United States.
From 1946 through 1949 she served with the Atlantic Fleet out of Norfolk. San Diego received her on 13 September 1949. She was in overhaul at Mare Island when the Korean War opened in June 1950. In August she went to Korea for the Inchon assault that September, and afterward she carried American and foreign troops and equipment into and out of the combat zone. In July 1953, under Big Switch and the armistice, North Korea's communist prisoners left Koje Do aboard her for Inchon. Training in both the eastern and western Pacific followed the war. In 1955 she helped evacuate Chinese civilians and soldiers from the Tachen Islands to Formosa.
On 27 October 1952, as the Cuban crisis opened, 1,400 Marines and their gear filled her, and she headed for the Caribbean alongside other amphibious ships of the Pacific Fleet. San Diego saw her back in December. March 1963 took her west to serve in the Amphibious Ready Group of the 7th Fleet, and she was home at San Diego that December. Upkeep and training lasted until she decommissioned on 1 July 1964. Mare Island then prepared the ship. Spain was to receive her under the Mutual Assistance Program. San Francisco held the ceremony on 19 December.