Burke soon returned to New York and made eight more uneventful round-trip transatlantic voyages to escort convoys to Europe or North Africa and back.

On 25 January 1945, the warship entered Sullivan Drydock and Repair Corporation in Brooklyn, New York, for conversion to a Charles Lawrence-class high speed transport.

There, she also embarked officers and sailors for transportation to San Diego and, after reaching southern California, took on board more passengers for passage to Pearl Harbor.

The high-speed transport's mission was to carry Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT's) to assault areas for prelanding beach clearance.

The high-speed transport trained near Legaspi on southeastern Luzon with other amphibious ships in preparation for the expected invasion of the Japanese home islands.

However, the explosion of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki early in August demonstrated to Japan the futility of continuing the war, so Burke never had an opportunity to participate in an assault.