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).

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

[9] The escort carrier was laid down on 6 October 1943, under a Maritime Commission contract, MC hull 1116, by Kaiser Shipbuilding Company, Vancouver, Washington.

She was launched on 29 December 1943; sponsored by Mrs. P. K. Robottom; transferred to the United States Navy and commissioned on 11 February 1944, Commodore Howard L. Young in command.

[1][10] After commissioning and fitting out at Astoria, Oregon, and conducting shakedown in Puget Sound, Ommaney Bay sailed on 19 March 1944 from Oakland, California, bound for Brisbane, Australia, with passengers and a cargo of supplies and aircraft.

By 27 April, she had completed her mission and was back in San Diego, where she began a rigorous ten days of carrier qualification landings, drills and tests.

From 11 September until the beginning of October, Ommaney Bay sat off Peleliu and Angaur and provided air cover for the fleet and close support strikes for the forces ashore.

[10][11] Ommaney Bay sailed to Manus Island to renew her depleted stock of fuel and ammunition, then joined Rear Admiral Felix Stump's "Taffy 2" (TU 77.4.2) for the invasion of Leyte, arriving on 22 October.

[12] At the beginning of the Battle off Samar, the escort carriers began launching airstrikes in an effort to cripple as many of the approaching enemy force as possible.

If launched earlier, the patrol could've possibly intercepted Vice-Admiral Takeo Kurita's task force, and provided advance warning for Taffy 3, influencing the subsequent Battle off Samar.

[17] On the early morning of 15 December, forty Japanese planes, divided equally between kamikazes and escorts, took off from Clark Field and Davao, bound for the battleships and carriers to the east of Mindoro.

At 17:00, approximately 15 Japanese planes were picked up on radar, 45 nautical miles (83 km; 52 mi) west of the task group, and approaching quickly.

Additionally, a lack of radar signals had led the task group to believe that the Japanese planes had withdrawn, and the kamikaze attack took the lookouts by complete surprise.

[24][25] Men struggling with the terrific blazes on the hangar deck soon had to abandon it because of the heavy black smoke from the burning planes and exploding .50 caliber ammunition.

Destroyer escorts found it difficult to assist Ommaney Bay, because of the intense heat, the ammunition going off, and the real possibility that a catastrophic detonation could be triggered by the blaze.

At 18:18, the torpedoes stored in the aft end of the ship finally detonated, collapsing the flight deck and launching debris onto the destroyers who were rescuing survivors.

[30] On July 10, 2023, the Naval History and Heritage Command at the Washington Navy Yard announced that two Australian diving firms had located the wreck in the Sulu Sea.

Retired Rear Admiral Samuel J. Cox said that "wreckage had been spotted at the site and preliminarily examined several years ago...There’s no other escort carrier anywhere near there, so we were pretty sure that that’s what it was and where it was... Then this latest group was able to get down there and find enough features so that there’s absolutely no doubt.” [3]