She was powered with two Uniflow reciprocating steam engines, which provided a force of 9,000 horsepower (6,700 kW), driving two shafts, enabling her to make 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph).

[4] By the end of the war, Casablanca-class carriers had been modified to carry 30 20 mm cannons, as a response to increasing casualties due to kamikaze attacks.

She was laid down on 19 January 1944 under a Maritime Commission contract, MC hull 1131, by Kaiser Shipbuilding Company of Vancouver, Washington.

Upon return, she became a unit of Carrier Division 29 (CarDiv 29), a component of Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid's 7th Fleet, alongside her fellow sister ships Makin Island, Bismarck Sea, Salamaua, and Hoggatt Bay.

She departed San Diego, California, on 16 October to participate in the Leyte Gulf operations, touching Pearl Harbor, Eniwetok, and Kossol Roads en route.

[8] Lunga Point sailed on 27 December from Manus to supply air support for 6th Army landing operations at Lingayen Gulf.

En route, on 4 January 1945, at 17:00, approximately 15 Japanese planes were picked up on radar, 45 miles (72 km) west of the task group, and approaching quickly.

The flaming wreckage passed over her, about a hundred feet above her stern, showering her deck with metal fragments, which slightly wounded two men.

[11] For the next few days, her task group fought their way through 14 enemy attacks, the majority of them kamikazes, most of which were repelled through excellent fighter cover and anti-aircraft fire.

[13] On 16 February 1945, Vice-Admiral Kimpei Teroaka authorized the formation of a kamikaze special attack unit to counter the imminent landings on Iwo Jima.

The third plane also missed with its torpedo, which proceeded behind the stern, and, set aflame and damaged heavily, attempted to crash into the carrier, approaching from the starboard side.

The kamikaze exploded before it could hit the ship, and the wreckage of the plane skidded across the deck, and off the side of the carrier, sparking a brief gasoline fire.

[14] She supported operations on Iwo Jima until 8 March, when land-based planes were present in sufficient strength to allow the ship to return to Ulithi to get ready for the Okinawa campaign.

Three days later, on 24 March, she, along with her task group, arrived south of Kerama Retto, providing air cover and bombing targets throughout Okinawa.

[18] Lunga Point remained in support of the operation providing air cover, pounding enemy ground targets in the Ryukyu Islands and fighting off constant kamikaze attacks.

[8] This was followed by a minesweeping operation west of Okinawa in early July, and on 1 August, she departed on an anti-shipping sweep along the Chinese coast from Shanghai northward.

[8][20] In late August the ship, attached to the 5th Fleet, aided in repatriating Allied prisoners of war (POWs) from the ports of Wakayama and Nagasaki.

[21] She was ordered to Tokyo Bay in early October, and en route took part in the unsuccessful search for Rear Admiral W. D. Sample missing in a PBM Mariner on a patrol flight.