USS Mintaka was built at Wilmington, California, as the 7160 gross ton civilian "Liberty" ship Ansel Briggs. Launched in March 1943, she was taken over by the Navy shortly thereafter, renamed, and converted to a Navy cargo ship. Mintaka was commissioned in May 1943 and began her first voyage to the South Pacific a month later. In September-November 1943 she made two cargo trips to Alaska, then was converted for troop transportation purposes. She carried more than a thousand men from San Francisco, California, to New Caledonia in February 1944, and was thereafter employed to convey personnel and supplies throughout the southern Pacific region.

In October 1944, following the capture of the Palaus, Mintaka's area of operations was extended northwards to include that island group. She transported troops and materiel to Okinawa in May 1945, helping to fight suicide plane attacks while moored there on 25 May. Returning to the U.S. West Coast in July, her next assignment was to take troops from there to the Central Pacific. Japan's mid-August capitulation took place while she was on that voyage, and she spent the rest of the year on logistics service in the Western Pacific. USS Mintaka arrived back at San Francisco in late December 1946 and was decommissioned in February 1946. Turned over to the War Shipping Administration and stricken from the list of Naval vessels, she regained her original name of Ansel Briggs. The ship was scrapped at Oakland, California, in 1968.