Covena, yard number 220, official number 217810, was completed in 1919 under United States Shipping Board Merchant Fleet Corporation (EFC) contract for seventeen ships, EFC Design 1060, Laker (a design referred to as "Stemwinders"), at Great Lakes Engineering Works, River Rouge Plant, Ecorse, Michigan.

The Junior N. Van Noy, the first of the port repair ships to be ready, sailed from Mobile, Alabama in late April with an Engineers crew sent from Fort Belvoir to Philadelphia for final preparation before deployment overseas.

Between Mobile and Key West the crew learned to spit to leeward and talk in terms of decks, bulkheads, and ladders.

Junior Van Noy sailed for the European Theater in late July 1944 from Halifax in Convoy number HXS300 arriving in August.

A converted Great Lakes steamer displacing only 3,000 tons, the ship had machine shops, storage bins, and heavy salvage equipment aboard.

The Junior N. Van Noy left Cherbourg 3 October 1944 bound for Le Havre with the 1055th Port Construction and Repair Group.

The ship was declared surplus and placed custody of the Maritime Commission 20 August 1947 for disposal, first in the reserve fleet at Brunswick, Georgia then in the James River in Virginia.