Built for the transatlantic passenger trade, König Wilhelm II operated between Hamburg, Germany, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, under the house flag of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, until the outset of World War I in 1914.

Voluntarily interned at Hoboken, New Jersey, to avoid being captured by the Royal Navy, the passenger liner was seized after the United States entered the war on 6 April 1917, as were all other German vessels in American ports.

Before agents of the U.S. federal government took possession of the ship, her German crew unsuccessfully attempted to render her unusable by cracking her main steam cylinders with hydraulic jacks.

Following repairs to the damaged machinery, König Wilhelm II was assigned the identification number 3011 and commissioned on 27 August 1917, Lt. Charles McCauley in temporary command pending the arrival of Comdr.

Sailing for the Pacific soon thereafter, Madawaska embarked elements of the Czech Legion at Vladivostok, Russia, early in 1920, as part of the evacuation of that force in the wake of the Russian Civil War in Siberia.

For almost two decades, U. S. Grant soldiered on in the Army Transport Service, maintaining a regular schedule of voyages carrying troops, passengers, and supplies along a route which included calls at San Francisco, California; Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii; Guam; Manila, Philippines; Chinwangtao and Shanghai, China; the Panama Canal Zone, and New York.

Naval Insular Force and local stevedores unloaded 300 tons of cargo from the grounded U. S. Grant, while much of her fuel was transferred to Robert L. Barnes and Admiral Halstead.

She took up her assigned position, as did Penguin, Robert L. Barnes and Admiral Halstead; at 0809 U. S. Grant lurched free of the coral reef, to the accompaniment of cheers from the transport's crew.

The island's newspaper, the Guam Recorder, subsequently reported in its June 1939 edition: "The short time in which the difficult operation was carried out was due to the efficient cooperation of all...involved, the Army, Navy, and Merchant Marine."

Armed with one 5-inch and four 3-inch guns (she had been unarmed while serving as an Army transport), the vessel was refitted at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California, and was commissioned on 16 June 1941.

The Battle of the Coral Sea during May 1942 convinced the Japanese that a thrust at Midway Island was imperative, in an attempt to draw out the American fleet - particularly the dwindling number of vital aircraft carriers.

Alert lookouts picked out the tracks of two torpedoes and evasive action enabled the ship to avoid the deadly "fish" which passed close aboard, from starboard to port.

The following month, as American and Canadian troops prepared to assault Kiska, Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell broke his flag in U. S. Grant as Commander, Task Force 51.