Wayne departed Baltimore on 1 September and headed down the eastern seaboard to Norfolk, Virginia., where she arrived the following day to take on fuel, stores, equipment and a full complement of landing craft.

The attack transport transited the Panama Canal on 21 and 22 October and arrived at Naval Base San Diego at the end of the month.

Arriving off Kwajalein on 30 January as part of the northern landing force, Wayne transferred her marines to LSTs which then carried them inside the lagoon to the beachhead.

Fueling there, Wayne and attack transport USS Elmore (APA-42) were detached from the homeward-bound convoy on the 17th, near Efate, in the New Hebrides, and anchored in Havannah Harbor.

Wayne performed a similar reinforcement mission to New Britain where American forces had been fighting to push back Japanese troops since the previous December.

At the time the attack transport arrived there, Allied troops had established a line about halfway across the island toward Rabaul and were awaiting more aid before continuing the push.

On 15 June, transports under Vice Admiral Richmond K. Turner landed Marines under the command of Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith, USMC, on Saipan, covered by intensive naval gunfire and carrier-based air support.

There, she witnessed part of the intensive preinvasion shelling by the gunfire support ships in the task force under Rear Admiral R. L. Conolly.

During her stay, she received 177 wounded troops from the beaches, and her medical department rendered sterling work in the care and treatment of those men.

Wayne stood by for two additional days after finishing her unloading before departing the Marianas on the 25th and carrying 165 wounded fighting men to Espiritu Santo, in the New Hebrides.

The attack transport remained at anchor in the New Hebrides until 14 August, when she shifted to Guadalcanal, en route to Renard Sound, in the Russell Islands, where the 1st Marine Division was encamped.

On 26 August, the attack transport sailed with TG 32.3 and devoted the ensuing days of the voyage to drills and briefings for the upcoming landings.

Between 1 and 12 October, Wayne participated in staging operations, including loading troops of the 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry, 24th Division, USA, and their equipment on the 8th and a practice landing at Sko Skai beach, eight miles east of Humboldt Bay, on the 12th.

While no enemy planes made an appearance close to Wayne that morning, a solitary "Jill", carrying a torpedo, attacked the convoy to which she was attached.

At 17:00, the enemy aircraft appeared forward of the convoy, briefly took a parallel course to it, and then when aft of Wayne's position, banked to starboard and began a low-altitude run on LSV USS Catskill (LSV-1).

Within the space of a day, Wayne unloaded her cargo and disembarked her troops and, by 16:30 on the 14th, was ready for sea, her boats hoisted on board and secured.

Loading cargo on the 17th, the attack transport had fueled on Christmas Eve and, on the 26th, took the main body of troops – from the 3d Battalion, 172d Infantry, 43rd Division, United States Army – on board.

After landing exercises at Aitape on the 27th, Wayne departed British New Guinea the following day, as part of the San Fabian Attack Group, bound for Lingayen Gulf.

On 9 January, Army forces landed at Lingayen Gulf under cover of gunfire from ships offshore and carrier based aircraft overhead.

On 24 January, Wayne departed Leyte; en route back to Luzon, her convoy came under attack by Japanese torpedo planes.

Her troops went ashore on D-Day – Easter Morning, 1 April 1945 – on a small beach dominated by high ground and protected by a reef.

Wayne remained at Kerama Retto from 5 to 9 April, spending much of that time moored alongside the battle-battered attack transport USS Hinsdale (APA-120) that had been damaged by a suicide plane on 31 March.

Red alerts and air raids continued almost without letup; "more than once enemy planes were observed making suicide attacks on other ships in the vicinity."

Proceeding independently from Hawaii to the west coast of the United States, Wayne departed Pearl Harbor on 29 April and reached San Francisco on 6 May.

On 10 August, Wayne sailed for the Marianas with naval and marine passengers – replacements bound for the forward areas of the Pacific theater.

She made a fuel stop at Eniwetok on 26 August and reached Guam shortly thereafter where she unloaded her cargo and disembarked her passengers.

The attack transport departed the Philippines in late October, stopped at Guam for fuel on the 21st and arrived at San Diego on 6 November.

Between 21 November 1945 and 7 January 1946, Wayne made one similar trip to the Philippines, returning Navy veterans to the United States in Operation Magic Carpet.

Subsequently, visiting Seattle and San Diego, she cleared the latter port on 26 January 1946 and transited the Panama Canal on 6 February.

Making port at New Orleans on the 11th, Wayne later shifted to Mobile and thence moved to her building site at the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation where she was decommissioned on 16 March 1946.