She was launched on 17 February 1943, renamed Algol on 30 August 1943, and placed in reduced commission on 27 November 1943 for transit to Willamette Shipyard, Portland, Oregon, for completion as an attack cargo ship.
On 17 December, Algol headed for Guadalcanal where she participated in landing exercises in preparation for the assault on Luzon at Lingayen Gulf.
[1] Upon her return to Leyte on 3 February, Algol spent about six weeks catching up on minor ship repairs, and her crew enjoyed more frequent liberty.
On 28 May, the attack cargo ship embarked upon a voyage to Hawaii, from which she returned to the west coast at San Francisco on 18 June.
[1] For the next two years, she carried passengers and cargo between various points in China, Japan, the islands of the central and western Pacific as well as to and from ports on the west coast of the United States.
By late summer of 1949, she was back in full commission operating out of Little Creek, Virginia, under Commander, Amphibious Forces, Atlantic Fleet.
Near the end of August, Algol embarked elements of the 7th Marine Division at Morehead City, North Carolina, and sailed for the Mediterranean Sea.
After visiting a number of ports along the shores of that sea and conducting operations with American naval forces in the area, the attack cargo ship returned to Norfolk in February 1950.
The ship embarked elements of the 1st Marine Division at San Diego and set sail for Kobe, Japan, on 31 August.
[1] Algol returned to Inchon on 8 October and embarked Headquarters Company, 1st Ordnance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, for what was to have been an amphibious assault at Wonsan on the northwestern coast of Korea.
However, United Nations (UN) naval gunfire and air activity forced the North Koreans back from the coastal plain into the highlands.
Exercises with units of the 7th Fleet punctuated by visits to a number of Oriental ports occupied her time for most of the remainder of 1952.
[1] Training and amphibious exercises – broken only by a repair period at the Todd Shipyard at Alameda, California, that summer – filled her time throughout the year 1953 and into the second month of 1954.
Early in August, she concluded a two-week visit at Hong Kong and headed – via Subic Bay – to Tourane and Hai Phong in North Vietnam.
"Operation Passage to Freedom" came on the heels of the defeat of the French by the Viet Minh and the division of the Vietnamese portion of Indochina into the communist north and the republican south.
She completed repairs in November and, after refresher training out of San Diego, resumed normal operations out of her home port.
After shakedown training out of San Diego, the attack cargo ship departed that port on 12 January 1962 on her way to duty with the Atlantic Fleet.
Notable among her assignments in the fall of 1962 was as a support unit for the "quarantine" of Cuba imposed by President John F. Kennedy during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
[1] Algol spent the remaining seven years of her Navy career operating primarily along the east coast of the United States and in the West Indies.
At that time, the attack cargo ship deployed to the Mediterranean Sea to participate in the massive amphibious exercise "Operation Steel Pike I."
By early 1965, she returned to more familiar waters and spent the remaining years of her career operating along the eastern seaboard and in the West Indies.
[1] Algol was decommissioned on 23 July 1970 and was transferred to the Maritime Administration's National Defense Reserve Fleet at James River, Virginia.