USS Monrovia (APA-31) was a Crescent City class attack transport of the United States Navy, built from a C-3 Delta commercial freighter design, and was named for the Birthplace of President James Monroe, located in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

After hurried conversion to accommodate equipment needed by a flagship, accomplished in 2 weeks by USS Delta (AR-9) at Mers el Kebir, she took on Army nurses as passengers for transport to Algiers.

There, on 1943-06-20, Vice Admiral Hewitt and his staff came on board, and were joined 10 days later by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton On 6 July, she departed for Sicily where she served as the command ship of the Western Task Force for Operation Husky.

Arriving off the assault area on the 10th, she suffered slight damage to her engine room on the 11th when a Stuka loosed bombs which straddled the vessel with two near misses.

Underway for the combat area again in June, she participated in the assault on Saipan, again landing personnel of the 2nd Marine Division, in spite of reefs, mortar fire, and aerial resistance.

In September, with 96th Infantry Division troops embarked, the transport sailed west again, arriving at Manus, the staging area for the upcoming Philippine offensive, 3 October.

Monrovia then returned to the Solomons, took on units of the 6th Marine Division, and, as flagship, TransDiv 36, conducted amphibious exercises in preparation for Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa.

Assigned to PhibRon 8, she carried Marines while deployed with the Sixth Fleet and conducted amphibious exercises with them while operating along the east coast and in the Caribbean.

The maintenance of a defensive readiness throughout this period enabled her to react positively during the many intervening crises such as occurred at Beirut, Lebanon, July 1958; Cuba, October, 1962; and the Panama Canal Zone, January 1964.