Shortly after midnight on 28 March, she encountered eight Japanese motor torpedo boats. They closed to when "Tolman" opened fire with her and 40-millimeter batteries. "Tolman" increased her speed to and maneuvered radically to avoid torpedoes. Two of the enemy boats exploded and sank as the remainder laid a smoke screen. The minelayer briefly lost contact, but used radar-controlled fire against the remaining boats and fired star shells to ferret them out. The last boat was seen to slow, apparently in trouble, just before it was blown up. The ship evidently made a clean sweep of the torpedo boats as a search revealed nothing, and no boats had been seen leaving the area.