The first Los Angeles was a naval overseas tanker built by the Union Iron Works in San Francisco, California for the Union Oil Company, and launched in 1916. After commissioning on 9 August1917, she operated along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts making numerous trans-Atlantic crossings carrying fuel oil to Brest, France, and Portsmouth and Davenport, England. In 1919, after the end of World War I, she was decommissioned and returned to her former owners.