The gunboat sailed down the Yangtze River to Shanghai, where Tolley boarded USS Oahu (PR-6), bound for Manila, Philippines.

This was the start of a two-month odyssey during which Lanikai sailed from Manila in the Philippine Islands, to Surabaya on Java in the then Netherlands East Indies.

After suitable recovery and refitting Lanikai was engaged in patrol work along the northern coast of Western Australia until April 27, 1942.

[4] Late in 1944, Tolley returned to the Pacific when he was assigned as the navigator of the battleship USS North Carolina where he participated in combat action at Leyte Gulf and off Luzon during the liberation of the Philippines.

After the war, he became an intelligence officer on the Naval Operations staff and commanded the attack cargo ship USS Vermilion (AKA-107) from June 1947 to September 1948.

[6] From 1949 to 1952, he was the director of the intelligence division at the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, where his unorthodox teaching methods were frowned upon by his superiors although his classes were very popular with his students.