For the next 9 months the destroyer battled foul weather as she shepherded shipping and cruised with TG 8.6 in unrewarded search for the enemy in Alaskan waters.

With Attu taken, the destroyer returned to convoy escort; Caldwell sailed in the screen of the force which carried reinforcements to Kiska, Alaska on 16 August 1943, the day after the first landings on that rugged island.

Caldwell bombarded Peale and Wake Islands and screened aircraft carriers launching air attacks against those islets.

On 11 December, Caldwell had a near miss with a kamikaze,[1] and the next day, while escorting landing craft to Ormoc Bay, she bore the brunt of the air attack.

Hit on the bridge simultaneously by a kamikaze and fragments from a two-bomb straddle, the destroyer suffered 33 killed and 40 wounded including the commanding officer.

After a visit to Tokyo Bay, Caldwell returned to the States; she was placed out of commission in reserve at Charleston, South Carolina, on 24 April 1946.