USS Inca, a 3,381-ton (light displacement) "Liberty" ship, was launched in March 1943 at Los Angeles, California, and entered merchant service later the same month as S.S. William B. Allison, MCE hull 724. Two years later she would be taken into US Navy as stores ship and renamed USS Inca (IX-229). For much of her service as Inca she was also named USS Gamage (IX-227) because of bureaucratic confusion.