USS Winged Arrow ( AP - 170 ) USS " Winged Arrow " ( AP - 170 ) was a " La Salle " - class transport of the United States Navy . The " La Salle " class transport had a displacement of almost 14 , 000 tons and were designed to ferry troops and supplies to and from the war zone during World War II . Commissioning . The ship was laid down 26 January 1943 as SS " Winged Victory " , a Maritime Commission type ( C2 - S - B1 ) hull , under Maritime Commission contract ( MC hull 1156 ) at Moore Dry Dock Company in Oakland , California , and launched 3 April 1943 . She was acquired by the Navy from the War Shipping Administration on 21 April 1944 and commissioned that same day as USS " Winged Arrow " ( AP - 170 ) , Comdr . J . E . Shomier in command . Service history . Saipan . On 30 April , " Winged Arrow " put to sea with a full complement of Army replacement troops , bound for Oahu where she arrived on 6 May . There , she practiced amphibious operations with soldiers from the Army ' s 27th Division in preparation for the occupation of the Mariana Islands . At the end of May , she departed Pearl Harbor with troops embarked , bound for Kwajalein in the Marshalls where she arrived on 9 June . Since " Winged Arrow " s embarked troops were assigned to the floating reserve , they were not scheduled to be on hand at Saipan on " D - day " . Therefore , she remained at Kwajalein for several days before departing there on a schedule calculated to put her off Saipan on 17 June , two days after the initial assault . The following day , she transferred her troops to LSTs ; and they landed at Agingan Point on Saipan . The transport then retired to Eniwetok to prepare for the second phase of the Marianas operation , the landings on Tinian . Tinian . After a somewhat lengthy wait at Eniwetok occasioned by the unexpectedly difficult task of rooting out the defenders of Saipan , " Winged Arrow " returned to the island on 19 July and retracted units of the 2nd Marine Division for the Tinian assault . On the morning of 24 July , she and several other ships carried that division , made up of the 2nd and 8th Marine Regiments , around to the southwestern coast of Tinian opposite Tinian Town where they feigned a landing to draw enemy forces from the real objective on the eastern coast . Upon concluding the feint , " Winged Arrow " transported the marines back around to waters off the actual invasion beaches where they remained in the floating reserve . On the 26th , they went ashore to reinforce and support the 4th Marine Division during the reduction of Tinian . " Winged Arrow " then embarked passengers , including 458 Japanese prisoners of war , at Saipan for transportation to Pearl Harbor . After disembarking the passengers at Oahu on 10 August , the transport continued eastward to San Francisco , where she arrived on 19 August . She completed almost a month ' s availability at San Francisco and then moved to San Diego on 19 September . There , she embarked a Marine Corps aviation unit for transportation to the Marshalls . She departed San Diego on 21 September and , after stops at Pearl Harbor and Majuro , disembarked her passengers at Roi islet in Kwajalein Atoll on 15 October . She embarked more passengers there and got underway again on 22 October , bound ultimately for Hollandia on the northern coast of New Guinea . After stops at Majuro and Manus in the Admiralty Islands , the transport arrived at Hollandia on 21 November . At the New Guinea base , the ship began preparations for the invasion of Luzon in the Philippines . Lingayen Gulf . Early in January 1945 , she embarked troops of the Army ' s I Corps , probably units of the 158th Regimental Combat Team , and sailed for Lingayen Gulf on the northwestern coast of Luzon as a part of Rear Admiral Richard L . Conolly ' s Reinforcement Group ( Task Group 77 . 9 ) . She and the other ships of her task group arrived off Lingayen on 11 January , two days after the initial assault . Her troops eventually landed near Mabilao about 15 miles east of the town of Lingayen itself and moved up to support other I Corps troops already engaged with the Japanese . During her stay at Lingayen Gulf , " Winged Arrow " was straddled by bombs and near - misses by a kamikaze who crashed close aboard her bow , but she performed her part in the operation without suffering casualties or damage . Leyte . She departed Lingayen on the night of 12 and 13 January , joined a convoy of fast transports , and shaped a course for Leyte Gulf . En route , the convoy suffered another kamikaze attack . One of the intruders succeeded in crashing into , but " Winged Arrow " again escaped damage . After about a week at Leyte , the transport carried more reinforcements to Luzon , landing them just north of Subic Bay at La Paz . She returned to Leyte and remained there until 16 February when she got underway with a Ulithi - bound convoy which included her damaged former travelling mate , " Zeilin " . The task unit reached Ulithi on 18 February , but " Winged Arrow " did not remain there long . Continuing her voyage , she stopped at recently invaded Iwo Jima where she embarked units of the 5th Marine Division for transportation to Hawaii . After disembarking the marines at Hilo and spending from 12 to 17 April in the islands , she resumed her voyage to the west coast of the United States and entered San Francisco Bay on the 23rd . Okinawa . " Winged Arrow " spent almost a month undergoing repairs at San Francisco . She departed that port on 16 May and headed north to Seattle where she arrived on the 19th . She embarked Army replacement troops for the Okinawa campaign and got underway again on 22 May . She made brief stops at Pearl Harbor , Eniwetok , and Ulithi before arriving in the Ryukyus in June . She remained at Okinawa until 8 July when she headed back to Pearl Harbor with 1 , 056 Japanese prisoners of war embarked . Steaming via Saipan and Eniwetok , she reached Oahu on 22 July . After unloading the prisoners of war , she took on a mixed group of passengers , which included male and female members of the armed forces as well as male and female civilians , for transportation back to the United States . The transport stood out of Pearl Harbor on 24 July and arrived in San Francisco six days later . The ship underwent a round of voyage repairs at San Francisco before returning to sea on 11 August . En route to the western Pacific , she received word of the Japanese capitulation on 14 August . She made brief calls at Eniwetok and Ulithi before arriving at her destination , Leyte , on the day of the actual surrender ceremony , 2 September 1945 . Post - war . After a side trip to Tacloban , " Winged Arrow " departed the Philippines on 5 September with 1 , 500 returning Americans embarked . She made a two - day stop at Ulithi and arrived in San Francisco once again prior to returning to the Far East . She arrived at Saipan in the Marianas in mid - October and picked up more returning troops there and at Guam and Tinian before getting underway on the 27th to transport them back to the United States . The ship entered San Francisco once again on 10 November but departed again for the Orient two weeks later . This time , her destination was Jinsen , Korea , where she arrived on 13 December and probably disembarked occupation troops before heading back to the United States on the 15th . She arrived in Seattle early in January 1946 and remained there until the 28th when she put to sea once again , bound for Asia . The ship arrived at Shanghai , China , on 14 February and remained there until the 17th at which time she headed south to Hong Kong for a two - day visit before heading back to the west coast . " Winged Arrow " left Hong Kong on 22 February ; stopped along the way at Guam , Truk , and Wake Island ; and reentered Seattle on 29 March . The transport embarked upon her final voyage for the Navy on 14 April . She made a stop at San Francisco and then shaped a course back to the Philippines on 26 April . " Winged Arrow " stood into Manila Bay on 14 May , moved to Subic Bay on 15 May , and headed for Samar on the 16th . She stopped only briefly at Samar on the 18th and then pointed her bow eastward . She concluded her final transpacific voyage for the Navy at San Francisco on 5 June . Decommissioning and sale . On the 27th , she headed north to Seattle and inactivation , arriving there on the 30th . She completed inactivation overhaul and was placed out of commission at Seattle and transferred to the Maritime Commission on 12 August 1946 for disposal . Her name was struck from the Navy List on 28 August 1946 . In 1948 , she was sold and converted to mercantile service . Between 1948 and 1965 , she served several steamship companies under the names " Susan " , " Noordzee " , " Fairhope " , and finally " Green Bay " . Her name disappeared from mercantile lists late in 1965 . Presumably she was broken up . Awards . " Winged Arrow " earned four battle star s during World War II .