USS America, a 21,085-ton transport, was built at Belfast, Northern Ireland, as the German passenger liner Amerika. Completed in October 1905, she spent the next nine years on the Hamburg-America Line's service between Germany and the United States. She was caught at the western end of the route when World War I began in August 1914 and was laid up at Boston, Massachusetts, from then until the U.S. entered the conflict in April 1917. Seized at that time by American authorities, Amerika was turned over to the Navy for conversion to a troop transport. In August 1917, while this work was underway at the Boston Navy Yard, she was commissioned as USS Amerika, a name soon changed to America.

In late October 1917, America began her active work, carrying U.S. service personnel across the Atlantic to France. She was employed on this vital duty for almost the remainder of the First World War, making nine round-trip voyages. On 14 July 1918 her seventh eastbound crossing was briefly interrupted by a collision that sank the merchantman Instructor, but left America with slight damage. Her ninth trip to France was notable for a severe outbreak of influenza, which took the lives of more than fifty men. On 15 October 1918, just before departing for another trip, the transport accidently sank alongside her pier at Hoboken, New Jersey. Raised and repaired over the next four months, America returned to service in February 1919 to begin the first of eight round-trip voyages that brought nearly 47,000 Americans home from the former European war zone.

In late September 1919, USS America was decommissioned and transferred to the U.S. Army Transportation Service. While employed as an Army Transport during the rest of the year, she completed two more trips to and from Europe. Between January and August 1920, USAT America made a long journey, via the Panama Canal and the Pacific Ocean, to carry members of the Czech Legion from Vladivostok, Russia, to Trieste, Italy. She was then converted for use as a civilian passenger liner, making her first Atlantic crossing as SS America in June 1921. Except for time out caused by a serious fire in March 1926, the ship continued in this service until the early 1930s, when she was laid up on the Patuxent River, Maryland.

The Second World War crisis brought the old steamer back to active duty. Reactivated in late 1940 as the U.S. Army Transport Edmund B. Alexander, she initially served as a barracks ship at St. John's, Newfoundland. After mid-1941 the ship was used in the Gulf of Mexico area and, in May 1942 entered a Baltimore, Maryland, shipyard to began a major modernization. This work, completed in April 1943, gave her new, oil-fired boilers, greater speed, and a much-changed appearance. Edmund B. Alexander spent the rest of the World War II era on transport service between the United States, North Africa and Europe. She continued her work with the Army into the post-war era, primarily carrying military dependents. Placed in reserve in May 1949, Edmund B. Alexander was sold for scrapping in January 1957.