Arriving in the Leyte Gulf transport area on 20 October, "McNair" took up antisubmarine patrol duty to protect ships and troops as the latter began to storm the shore at Dulag. In the first hours of the 25th, she remained at her station to cover the entrance to Leyte Gulf as her sister ships of DesRon 54 conducted their much-heralded night torpedo attack on Japanese men-of-war steaming toward the northern end of Surigao Strait and defeat under the guns of Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf’s battleline.