General Stuart Heintzelman (AP-159) was launched under a Maritime Commission contract (MC #716) 21 April 1945 by Kaiser Co., Inc., Yard 3, Richmond, California; sponsored by Mrs. C. H. Wright; acquired by the Navy and simultaneously commissioned 12 September 1945.
After shakedown out of San Diego, General Stuart Heintzelman departed San Pedro, California, 9 October 1945 and carried more than 3,000 occupation troops to Yokohama. Returning to Seattle 6 November with 3,100 veteran passengers, she made a similar voyage from Seattle to Japan and back again between 13 November and 9 December. On 28 December she sailed from Seattle on another "Magic-Carpet" run to Manila and Yokohama and returned to San Francisco 3 March 1946 with a full load of homeward-bound troops. Following a round-trip voyage from San Francisco to Manila and return, General Stuart Heintzelman steamed from the West Coast via Panama to New York, where she arrived 27 May. She decommissioned there 12 June and was returned to WSA for use as an Army transport by the Army Transport Service.
On 30 October 1947 USAT General Stuart Heintzelman left Bremerhaven with 843 displaced persons from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia on 28 November 1947.[2][3] This voyage was the first of almost 150 voyages by some 40 ships bringing refugees of World War II to Australia.[4]General Stuart Heintzelman made three more such trips herself, arriving in Melbourne with 822 refugees on 20 April 1948, in Sydney with 1301 on 24 November 1949, and in Melbourne with 1302 on 3 March 1950.[4] She also made a trip from Germany to New York, bringing [TK] refugees and arriving on 13 January 1950. Another trip departed Bremerhaven on 17 April 1950.
General Stuart Heintzelman was reacquired by the Navy 1 March 1950 and assigned to overseas transport duty under MSTS. Crewed by civilians, she operated out of San Francisco in 1950 and into 1951 steaming to the Far East carrying combat troops in support of the Korean War. In late 1951 she steamed from San Francisco to New York for transport duty in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. For more than 2 years she made passenger runs typically from New York to Bremerhaven, Germany; La Pallice, France; Southampton, England; Argentia, Newfoundland; Reykjavík, Iceland; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. One such run in November 1951 hauled elements of the 28th Infantry Division from Hampton Roads, Virginia to Bremerhaven as an effort to bolster NATO forces in Germany.[5]
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