The purpose of any attack transport was to deliver troops and their equipment to hostile shores in order to execute amphibious invasions using an array of smaller integral landing craft.

Being intended to serve in forward combat areas, these ships were well armed with antiaircraft guns to protect itself and its vulnerable cargo of troops from air attack in the battle zone.

The ships were all eventually handed over to the US Navy, but two of them, Tasker H. Bliss and Hugh L. Scott were sunk by enemy action not long after America's entry into the war, while another, Willard A. Holbrook, was acquired but never commissioned.

Later classes of attack transport were to receive heavier armament as the 20mm weapon in particular was to prove of limited effectiveness at combating Japanese kamikaze tactics.

At the close of hostilities a number were employed in redeploying American troops for occupation duty in newly conquered Japan and its former territories in China and Korea, after which they were utilized in Operation Magic Carpet, the giant sealift organized to bring demobilizing American servicemen back to the United States.