Vella Gulf, between Vella Lavella and Kolombangara, was the water where American destroyers sank three Japanese destroyers on the night of 6-7 August 1943. Todd-Pacific at Tacoma laid the escort carrier down as Totem Bay on 7 February 1944, renamed her Vella Gulf on 26 April, and launched her on 19 October. Mrs. Donald F. Smith sponsored her. Captain Robert W. Morse commissioned her on 9 April 1945.
After local operations in Puget Sound she reached San Diego on 4 May and embarked the first of her Marine air group. She shook down off southern California, finished a post-shakedown availability, and left the west coast on 17 June. She reached Pearl Harbor on 25 June, trained for eleven days, and sailed on 9 July. She refueled at Eniwetok on the 16th and reached Guam four days later.
On 23 July she sailed to strike Rota and Pagan. The next day she launched twenty-four sorties against Pagan with FG-1D Corsairs, a Hellcat photographic plane, and TBM-3E Avengers. Three days later she launched twenty-one sorties against Rota: a dozen Corsairs, eight Avengers, and one Hellcat. Light antiaircraft fire did not reach the planes. Two aircraft came home with tail surfaces nicked by fragments from their own bombs, because they had attacked so low. The day after the Rota strike she flew her planes off to Saipan and returned to Apra Harbor on 2 August.
On 6 August she headed for Okinawa and reached Buckner Bay four days later. That night the anchorage heard that surrender talks were underway, and ships and shore batteries set off pyrotechnics. She was back at Guam on 15 August, the day Japan capitulated. She then fed and fueled other ships off Japan and, late in August, alternated with Gilbert Islands (CVE-107) in air cover for a replenishment group. She entered Tokyo Bay on 10 September. On 21 September she left, embarked 650 men at Okinawa, and reached San Francisco on 14 October.
She trained escort-carrier crews in Puget Sound until late March 1946, touched San Diego on 27 March, and began inactivation at Tacoma at the end of the month. Moved to Seattle on 7 April, she was placed out of commission on 9 August 1946. She received one battle star. On 12 June 1955 she was reclassified as a helicopter escort carrier, and later as T-AKV-11. She remained in reserve. Struck on 1 June 1960, reinstated on 1 November, and struck again on 1 December 1970, she was sold on 22 October 1971 to American Ship Dismantlers of Portland and scrapped.