Originally assigned to the 2nd Naval District in southern New England, Anderton was reassigned during conversion to Squadron 4, Patrol Force, and ordered prepared for "distant service", and soon after commissioning got underway for France via the Azores as a unit of the 3rd Patrol Division.

Later shifted to the 12th Patrol Division, she operated off the French coast, initially assigned to coastal convoy escort duties.

On 12 January 1918, USS P. K. Bauman (SP-377), while operating in a fog near Concarneau, struck a rock and began taking on water.

Besides minesweeping duty and covering the convoy routes from Penmarch to Bouy de Boeufs, Anderton reinforced coastal convoy escorts as required, cleared the Teignouse Channel and other important passages of mines for the passage of troopships in the vicinity of Belle Île, and operated at night off Penmarch, using her primitive listening gear ("sea tubes") to detect German submarines.

When that work was completed in the spring of 1919, Anderton departed Brest on the morning of 27 April 1919 bound for the United States in company with other U.S. Navy trawlers, but rough weather soon forced them to return to port.