USS Curtiss, lead ship of a class of two 8671-ton seaplane tenders, was built at Camden, New Jersey. Commissioned in November 1940, she served in the Atlantic until May 1941, when she was sent to the Pacific. During the next several months, she supported seaplane operations out of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and made one voyage to reinforce the garrison at Wake Island. Curtiss was at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, during the Japanese Attack, in which she was damaged by a bomb hit and a Japanese plane that crashed into her superstructure. Following repairs on the west coast, she returned to Pearl Harbor in February 1942 and remained there until mid-year.

For the rest of 1942 and into 1943, Curtiss was stationed at Noumea, New Caledonia, and Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, She acted as a flagship, supported aircraft and repaired warships during the Guadalcanal and Central Solmons campaigns. Transferred to the Central Pacific in November 1943, she served through the rest of the Pacific War at a series of bases, moving forward as the fighting fronts advanced toward Japan. After the end of the conflict, Curtiss operated in the Far East until March 1947.

During the later 1940s and into the 1950s, Curtiss was mainly employed to support scientific endeavors and amphibious operations. She made one Korean War deployment, in the last half of 1950, to tend patrol seaplanes in Japanese waters. In 1951-56, she was on hand during a series of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons tests in the Central Pacific. In early 1957, Curtiss took part in Operation "Deepfreeze", a long-running project for the scientific study of the Antarctic continent. Decommissioned in September 1957, USS Curtiss was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in July 1963 and transferred to Maritime Administration custody. She was sold for scrapping in February 1972.