In World War I she served with the Navy as USS President Grant (ID-3014) before being turned over to the Army and named Republic.

Originally christened as the SS Servian, she was built in 1903 by Harland and Wolff, Ltd. of Belfast for the Wilson & Furness-Leyland Line, a subsidiary of International Mercantile Marine Co. spearheaded by J.P. Morgan.

In August 1914, after seven years of trans-Atlantic passenger service, she took refuge at New York City when the outbreak of World War I made the high seas unsafe for German merchant ships.

During the period January to November 1920, she served as the United States Army Transport Republic and made two voyages repatriating Czechoslovak troops from Vladivostok to Trieste.

[1][3][4] On 21 November 1941 Republic left San Francisco for the Philippines by way of Hawaii with 2,666[Note 1] Army officers, including Brig.

[5][6] After overnight refueling she left port on the 29th to join six other vessels and assume the role of flagship for a convoy headed to the Philippines escorted by the USS Pensacola (CA-24).

[5][7] Aboard Republic for that celebration was the ground element of the Army Air Forces 7th Heavy Bombardment Group whose B-17 bombers were taking off the same day from Hamilton Field, California to arrive over Hawaii during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Republic and other ships in the convoy improvised wartime measures by painting superstructures gray and searching cargo for weapons.

She was struck from the Navy Register 2 February 1945 and turned over to the Army for conversion to a hospital ship, designated USAHS Republic.

As USAT Republic, she embarked war veterans at Tacloban and Leyte bringing them back to San Francisco in late March 1946.

In May 1949, she was decommissioned by the Army Transport Service and returned to the Maritime Commission, after which she was laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Olympia, Washington.