Noble's primary mission was to transport to a combat area the men and some of the material necessary for an assault on an enemy shore. Her main armament, her boat group, was designed to deliver her troops and cargo to the beach in a planned and orderly fashion. After discharging troops and equipment, she could evacuate casualties or prisoners of war.[3]
In January 1945, Noble steamed westward to participate in the Okinawa campaign.[3]
Post-war duties
Upon termination of the war, she assisted in the delivery of released allied prisoners of war from Korea to the Philippines. She also participated in Operation Magic Carpet, returning servicemen from the Pacific to the United States. Noble was attached to the US Atlantic Fleet from 1946 through 1949, operating out of Norfolk, Virginia.[3]
Korean War
Noble returned to San Diego 13 September 1949, and was undergoing overhaul at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, San Francisco, when war broke out in Korea in June 1950. In August, she steamed to Korea to participate in the September Inchonamphibious assault. Thereafter, she assisted in the transport of US and foreign troops and equipment to and from the Korean combat zone.[3]
Subsequent to the Korean War, Noble conducted training operations in both the eastern and western Pacific areas. In 1955, she assisted in the evacuation of Chinese civilians and military from the Tachen Islands to Formosa. The ship appeared in the 1956 20th Century Fox movie D-Day the Sixth of June starring Robert Taylor, Richard Todd and Dana Wynter and in the 1956 movie Between Heaven and Hell starring Robert Wagner, Terry Moore, and Buddy Ebsen. At the outset of the Cuban Missile Crisis on 27 October 1962, Noble embarked 1,400 Marines with their equipment and steamed for the Caribbean in company with other Pacific Fleet amphibious units. She returned to San Diego in December, then deployed to WestPac in March 1963 for a tour with the Seventh FleetAmphibious Ready Group.[3]
Transfer to the Spanish Navy
Noble returned to San Diego in December 1963, and conducted upkeep and training operations until she decommissioned 1 July 1964. She then entered the Mare Island Naval Shipyard for preparation for transfer to Spain under the Mutual Assistance Program. The transfer ceremony took place 19 December, at San Francisco.[3]
Spanish service
Renamed attack transport Aragón (TA-11), by the Spanish Navy, the ship served until being laid up and struck from the Spanish Navy Vessel Register on 1 January 1982. She was sold for scrap in 1987.[4]
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