 After commissioning, "LST-32" served as a training platform in Chesapeake Bay, until March 1944, when she crossed the Atlantic Ocean and entered the Mediterranean Sea.On 1 April, while proceeding in a convoy from the Algerian coast to the island of Majorca, she and her consorts endured a low level attack by a formation of three German twin-engine bombers.Antiaircraft fire splashed one of them and drove off the other two.