Her most significant action during the war was to supply ships with food and water at the landing beaches of Operation Dragoon, the allied invasion of Southern France in 1944.

The purpose of this class was to transport cargo to and from deep-draft ocean-going ships to small ports which were too shallow to admit the larger vessels.

[3][4] Since major shipyards were building combatant and merchant ships, the Navy recruited a new class of emergency shipbuilders, of which Erie Concrete & Steel Supply was one, for less critical auxiliary vessels.

Her tanks held 12,500 U.S. gallons (47,000 L) of Diesel fuel, giving her a range of 3,200 nautical miles at cruising speed.

[4] The Navy's specifications for YF-445 and her sisterships included removable mine-laying tracks, allowing the vessel to carry up to 64 Mark VI mines.

Among the changes which were made, were the removal of her machine guns, the opening of ports to improve the habitability of her crew quarters, repainting, and the installation of a more powerful crane.

[1] White Heath had neither a bow thruster nor any special hull plating for ice breaking, features of all later types of Coast Guard buoy tenders.

The winches were moved from the buoy deck to inside the house, giving it 1,000 square feet (93 m2) of working space.

[9] After more than three decades of service, the lack of spare parts for the ship's engines and her obsolete 120-volt DC electrical system[10] caused breakdowns and higher repair costs.

[14] YF-445 was assigned to the Alpha Attack Force under Rear Admiral Frank J. Lowry for Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France.

[21] The ship earned the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal[22] for this service.On 16 April 1945, YF-445 was detached from 8th Fleet Amphibious Group[23] and reported for duty at Naval Operating Base Palermo, Sicily.

[26] On 22 November 1945, YF-445, with her crew aboard, was taken in tow by USS Chain at Palermo for the long trip back to the United States.

This designation was changed in 1966 to WLM-545 to reflect the service's new classification scheme which regarded White Heath as a "medium or coastal buoy tender."

[32] Secondary roles included various public safety missions, law enforcement, and light icebreaking.

[36] The 600-foot long Greek freighter Stamatios Gembiricos was anchored in Boston Harbor on 21 January 1963 when the wind increased to 35 miles per hour.

Her anchor began to drag and the drifting vessel threatened Deer Island Light and other ships in the anchorage.

[39] Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a four-engine Lockheed Electra, crashed on take-off at Boston Logan Airport on 4 October 1960.

[40] The ship raised a sunken 30-foot Coast Guard crash boat in Salem Harbor in September 1968 after it was involved in several accidents.

[41] White Heath recovered the wreck of a Provincetown-Boston Airlines Cessna 402 that crashed en route to Boston Logan Airport in July 1984.