USS President Adams, a 16,175-ton transport built as a civilian passenger-cargo ship at Newport News, Virginia, in 1940-41, was taken over by the Navy in June 1941. After conversion to suit her for military purposes, she was commissioned in November 1941. While at sea during her shakedown period on 25 December of that year, she engaged a German submarine but received no damage. Soon after that, President Adams was transferred to the Pacific for service in the war against Japan. She carried Marines to the south Pacific in July 1942 and the next month took part in the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi. She continued to support the campaign to hold Guadalcanal until its successful conclusion in February 1943. Reclassified as an attack transport at that time, she was given the new hull number APA-19.

For the rest of 1943 and into 1944, President Adams played an active role in operations to drive the Japanese up the Solomon Island chain toward Rabaul. She participated in amphibious assaults on Rendova in July and on Bougainville in November 1943, as well as providing general transportation services in the region. In mid-1944, she was part of the Marianas invasion force, landing her troops on Guam in July and subsequently taking casualties back to Hawaii and the U.S. west coast. During 1945, President Adams took part in combat landings at Lingayen Gulf in January and Iwo Jima in February. She spent the rest of the Pacific War on logistics duties, then supported occupation activities and helped bring veterans home from the former war zone.

President Adams continued her transportation work in the Pacific until March 1947, then shifted to the Atlantic where she operated until February 1950. Returned to the Pacific at that time, the ship was decommissioned in June 1950. Transferred to the Maritime Administration in October 1958, she was retained in the National Defense Reserve Fleet into the 1970s. President Adams was scrapped in Taiwan in 1974.