[3] Following a period of modifications and shakedown training, Blount loaded cargo and stood out of San Francisco, California, on 16 March.

The ship spent three days there discharging cargo before returning to sea on the 11th, bound—via Biak Island—for Morotai in the Netherlands East Indies.

On 29 May, Blount set sail for Borneo and, on 1 June, arrived at Tarakan where she dispensed emergency rations for Australian troops fighting for the island.

The cargo ship stopped off overnight on 7 and 8 June at Parang on Mindanao Island to unload supplies before heading back to Morotai.

[3] Blount remained at Manus for over a month intermittently loading cargo and undergoing repairs for minor damage incurred in a collision with a civilian merchantman that occurred just before she entered the harbor.

The cargo ship departed Cebu on 17 August and entered port at Iloilo on Panay Island on the 18th to provision transports with Japan-bound occupation troops embarked.

By the spring of 1948, she had been sold to Koninklijke Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij N.V. which steamship line put her in service as SS Hecuba.

[3] Blount was sold to the Dutch shipping firm of Koninklijke Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij, N.V., on 5 April 1948, and renamed Hecuba.