USS Siboney was commissioned as a displacement transport, weighing in at over 11,000 tons and slated to be used as a civilian passenger vessel. The ship was launched in 1917 as the S.S. Oriente, but underwent a name change in February 1918. She was assigned to troop transport operations across the Atlantic during the end of World War I.
The vessel made six total trips to France from the U.S., bringing thousands of soldiers to war. The great influenza epidemic of 1918 struck Siboney hard, killing 38 men during her 6th trip to France in October of that year.
Siboney was getting ready for her 7th trip to France, but the enemy situation caused her to change her plans. Instead, she took a group of Navy men and went to St. Nazaire, France, right as the Armistice was being put into place. Later that month, she returned to the U.S. with wounded soldiers, and was part of the home journey for the American Expeditionary Force, which consisted of 10 voyages with an average of 3,000 troops per trip.
She was decommissioned in September 1919 and was given to the U.S. Army. After a brief civilian job and a stint in Army transport, she was laid up in 1948 and then scrapped in 1957.