SS Point Bonita was constructed in 1918 and launched 27 March 1918 after a hull being built for foreign owners at Albina Engine and Machine Works was requisitioned during World War I by the United States Shipping Board (USSB).

The ship departed New York 19 October in convoy and arrived at Nantes on 7 November with a cargo of military supplies and high explosives.

There she loaded a cargo for the USSB, picked up Navy coal at Norfolk and departed for Hawaii 8 January 1919 arriving at Pearl Harbor 7 February.

[3] In 1920 Point Bonita was sold to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company where she was engaged in freight only trade between San Francisco and Baltimore with a call at New York.

She continued this essential back-area support of fleet operations from Guadalcanal to the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago between April and October 1944, returning then to base at Nouméa.

[7] An overhaul at Auckland, New Zealand, from November 1944 to January 1945 was the only further interruption to her busy schedule in the New Caledonia area until 1 October 1945 when she cleared for the U.S. West Coast.