31st Infantry - Manila - USAT Grant circa 1928

The U.S. Army Transport U.S. Grant (of 9410 gross tons) was originally the German commercial steamer König Wilhelm II, built at Stettin, Germany in 1907. She served as USS Madawaska during and after World War I and was transferred to the War Department in early September 1919. Initially retaining that name as a U.S. Army Transport, she carried Czechoslovak troops from Siberia to Europe in 1920. Modified at New York for regular Army trooping service in 1921-1922, she was renamed U.S. Grant in June 1922.

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, Philippine Islands; Chinwangtao and Shanghai, China; the Panama Canal Zone, and New York. For many of these years of service in the Pacific, U. S. Grant served as the sole source of refrigerated stores from the United States. Her periodic arrivals at Apra Harbor invariably produced a temporary improvement in the diet of Americans living in Guam.

The ship thereafter operated on trans-Pacific service to the Philippines and China, with return voyages via the Panama Canal to New York. Breaks in this schedule took place when she was laid up for a year in the mid-1920s, and later in the decade when she was extensively refitted at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California. She ran aground at Guam on 19 May 1939, but was safely gotten afloat two days later after a considerable effort. In June 1941 USAT U.S. Grant was turned over to the Navy. Placed in commission as USS U.S. Grant (AP-29), she served through World War II, completing her final voyage in November 1945. Returned to the War Department soon afterwards, she was transferred to the U.S. Maritime Commission and laid up in 1946. U.S. Grant was sold for scrapping in February 1948.