On April 11, 1947, "Edisto" sailed for the United States East Coast on a shake-down cruise. That summer, during a training cruise to Greenland, she crossed the Arctic Circle for the first of many times in her career. Upon her return to Boston, Massachusetts, "Edisto" was assigned to Task Force 39 for the Second Antarctic Development Project. She sailed on November 1, 1947 for a rendezvous via the Panama Canal with at American Samoa. Together, they ventured south, becoming the first ships to penetrate the pack ice east of the Ross Sea. While in the Antarctic on this deployment, "Edisto" trained sailors and tested cold weather equipment, as well as investigating installations and equipment left by Operation Highjump of the previous year. She also collected valuable scientific data concerning geographic, hydrographic, photographic, oceanographic, meteorological, and electromagnetic conditions in the south polar regions.