Two months of local operations terminated in January 1945 as Gregory began practice for the impending invasion of Iwo Jima, next-to-last great campaign of the long and bloody Pacific War.

Okinawa, last step prior to invasion of the Japanese home islands themselves, involved over a thousand ships and half a million men, under Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, in the Pacific's war largest amphibious effort.

Gregory joined this modern armada as it sailed from Saipan 27 March and was off Okinawa 1 April 1945 as the first waves of Marines waded ashore to bloody battle.

Reaching Yokosuka, Japan, via Pearl Harbor and Midway 16 August 1951, Gregory immediately began patrol duty along the Korean coast.

After the Korean Armistice ended the shooting war in August 1953, Gregory returned to a peacetime routine of local operations out of San Diego interspersed with yearly deployments, usually 6 months long, to the Far East.

These deployments took her to Yokosuka, Sasebo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Sydney, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Formosa for training maneuvers with American and other warships.