She was laid down as a Type C2-S-AJ3 ship on 17 July 1944 at Wilmington, North Carolina, by the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company under a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 1397); launched on 21 September 1944; sponsored by Miss Shirley B. Anderson; transferred to the Navy on 6 October 1944; converted to an attack cargo ship in New York by the Atlantic Basin Iron Works; and commissioned on 3 April 1945.

Commissioned two days after the beginning of the last amphibious operation of World War II, the Okinawa invasion, Wheatland never saw service in the role for which she had been converted.

Following shakedown training and amphibious exercises at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and post-shakedown availability at the Norfolk Navy Yard, the ship departed the Chesapeake Bay on 7 May with 5,038 tons of dry cargo.

Wheatland entered Subic Bay in the Philippines on 30 September and, the next afternoon, moved to Lingayen Gulf where she loaded men and equipment of the US Army's 32nd Division for transportation to Japan.

The attack cargo ship arrived in Sasebo early in the morning of 16 October and began disembarking the troops later in the day.

Wheatland was placed out of commission at Norfolk on 25 April 1946, and custody was transferred to the Maritime Administration the next day and berthed with many of her sister ships in the reserve fleet, James River Group, at Lee Hall, Virginia.

On 8 December 1967, she was sold again to North East Shipping Corporation and renamed SS Grand Loyalty; the vessel was re-flagged Panamanian at this time as well.