The ship's keel was laid down by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation at their yard in Tacoma, Washington on 5 January 1943.

She was redesignated again to CVE-46 on 15 July that year and transferred to the United Kingdom under Lend-Lease on 8 November, when she was commissioned into the Royal Navy.

Serving with Training Squadron, Western Approaches, at the end of 1945, she was returned to US custody at Norfolk, Virginia on 21 November 1946.

She was sold into merchant service 9 June 1947 to the Waterman Steamship Corporation, in Mobile, Alabama as Friesland (later Pacific Breeze).

These ships were larger and had a greater aircraft capacity than all the preceding American built escort carriers.