As General William Weigel was steaming toward Pearl Harbor, one of her passengers became critically ill. To save his life, strict radio silence was broken to arrange a mid-ocean rendezvous with a seaplane out of Balboa.

This far ranging ship sailed 28 May for Marseilles to embark 5,000 soldiers and transferred them to Eniwetok and Manila to take part in the climactic Pacific battles.

From 6 October 1945 to 8 February 1946, she made three round-trip trans-Pacific voyages (two out of San Francisco and the third from Seattle) to bring occupation troops to Yokohama.

Decommissioned there 10 May 1946, she was transferred to the War Department for peacetime operations as an Army transport and made shuttle runs with troops and supplies from San Francisco to garrisons in the Pacific until reacquired by the Navy 20 July 1950.

In this phase of her career, the ship sailed from the Pacific coast to Japan and Korea carrying troops for duty in the Korean War.

General William Weigel was returned to the Maritime Commission 12 June 1958 and entered the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Olympia, Washington.

On 9 December 1965 she departed US Army Oakland California Terminal with elements of the 20th Engineer Battalion arriving at Cam Ranh Bay on 1 January 1966.

The eight men of the 51st Civil Affairs Platoon, the smallest tactical unit in the US Army at the time, were the last troops delivered to a war zone by Weigel in her long and far-ranging career as a troopship, with PFC Fred Jablonsky of New York City being the last to leave the ship.