USS Kershaw, one of 117 Haskell-class attack transports, was built to a modified Victory ship design at Vancouver, Washington, and was commissioned in December 1944. After shakedown on the West Coast, she transported nurses and naval personnel to Guam in February and then moved to Saipan to prepare for the invasion of the Ryukyus. Her troops participated in the initial assault on Okinawa in early April, and she remained off the island for the next ten days supporting the operation. In June and July she steamed to the Solomons, then back through the central Pacific to Guam and on to San Francisco for a short overhaul.

After the Japanese surrender, Kershaw transported replacement troops and cargo to Leyte in September and then carried occupation troops from there to Japan. Later in 1945 and in 1946 she carried out five voyages under Operation "Magic Carpet," returning veterans from the Pacific theater of war to the West Coast. Among the cargo she carried on the westward portion of these voyages was equipment for the July 1946 atomic bomb tests at Bikini. Her fifth voyage ended at Norfolk in August 1946, and she was placed out of commission there in December 1946. Retained on the Navy list for the next decade as a mobilization asset, Kershaw was stricken from the Navy list in October 1958 and transferred to the Maritime Administration in December for further retention in reserve. The Maritime Administration sold her for scrapping in June 1982.