The ship was commissioned, classified as a transport with hull number AP-25, USS Leonard Wood with a United States Coast Guard crew on 10 June 1941.

[3][4] The ship was an Emergency Fleet Corporation Design 1029 type for delivery to the USSB, known in the commercial trade as "535's" for their overall length, that had been intended as troop transports, but redesigned as passenger and cargo vessels.

[6][7] Munson operated the four sister ships on the New York to Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires route, with Santos added during return voyages.

[13] The Atlantic Conference was held on 9 August 1941 in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, between Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt.

Besides the "official" agenda, Churchill hoped to obtain considerable assistance from the USA, but the American President had his political hands tied.

On 5 September the President assured the British leader that six vessels would be provided to carry twenty thousand troops and would be escorted by the American Navy.

The chief of Naval Operations ordered troop ships divisions seventeen and nineteen, on 26 September 1941, to prepare their vessels for approximately six months at sea.

[15] Wakekfield (AP-21), with 6,000 men embarked, and five other transports Mount Vernon (AP-22), West Point (AP-23), Orizaba (AP-24), Leonard Wood (AP-25) and Joseph T. Dickman (AP-26) got underway as Convoy WS12-X on 10 November 1941.

She departed Hampton Roads 24 October carrying almost 1,900 fighting men from the 3rd Infantry Division and slipped in close to beaches at Fedhala, French Morocco, on the night of 7 to 8 November.

She sortied with TF 65 on 5 July and 4 days later, began unloading waves of troops in the Wood's Hole sector, some 5.5 miles west of Socglitti, Sicily.

At dawn of the 10th, her gunners fired at an enemy bomber which dropped bombs 200 to 300 yards astern, and kept up an antiaircraft barrage throughout the day, helping to splash three planes.

Arriving at Eniwetok, Marshall Islands, an atoll Leonard Wood had helped to secure just 3 months before, the ship fueled, watered, and provisioned before departing 11 June for her assigned anchorage off Saipan.

[13] Remaining at Manus just long enough to fuel, provision, and re-embark troops, the transport sailed on 12 October to begin the long-awaited liberation of the Philippines.

Arriving off the Leyte beachheads on 20 October, Leonard Wood debarked troops and cargo in record time and steamed for Palau only 10 hours later.

[13] For the next week, Leonard Wood prepared for further operations in the Philippine Islands, departing Sansapor, New Guinea, on 30 December 1944 for the assault on Lingayen Gulf.

Debarking her troops and cargo in less than 5 hours, she steamed for San Francisco via Leyte, Ulithi, and Pearl Harbor, arriving on 27 March.

[13] After repairs at San Francisco, Leonard Wood began transport duties between the United States and the western Pacific, making two runs to Manila and one to Tokyo.