After shakedown off Bermuda, "George" sailed from Boston, Massachusetts on 11 January 1944 to escort a merchantman from Norfolk, Virginia to Nouméa, New Caledonia, where she arrived on 19 February. Until the spring of 1944, "George" escorted transports to the Admiralties, the New Hebrides, and the Solomons during consolidation operations in the Solomons. On 16 May, she sailed from Florida Island, in the Solomons, in a hunter-killer group with and on what was to become one of the most successful anti-submarine actions in the Pacific war.