 This flagship of Destroyer Escort Division 37 picked up convoys at Guantanamo, the Panama Canal Zone, and the Society Islands as she steamed across the southern Pacific to Noumea, New Caledonia, arriving on 8 February.Escort and screening duties in the Solomon Islands preceded her departure on 19 April for the New Guinea battle zone.Arriving off Hollandia (now Jayapura, Indonesia) without incident on 24 April, she screened the debarking of the second wave of relief troops.