Hunt sortied with the carrier task force 16 January 1944 to support the invasion of the Marshall Islands, the operation which, in the words of Rear Adm. Richard L. Conolly, "... really cracked the Japanese shell.

At dawn 29 January, Mitscher's planes opened the operation with strikes against enemy-held airfields on Roi Island, Kwajalein Atoll, while Hunt protected the carriers from which they were launched.

The next day she joined battleships North Carolina (BB-55), South Dakota (BB-57) and Alabama (BB-60) in shelling pillboxes and other targets on the northern beaches of Roi and Namur Islands.

In the early morning darkness of 17 February, Hunt arrived off Truk with the rest of the force which began the systematic destruction of the Japanese ships and planes caught in the area.

A group of heavies—two battleships, two heavy cruisers, and four destroyers—circled the atoll to catch enemy ships attempting to escape, while carrier-based planes attacked targets on the islands and in the Lagoon.

Moreover, the destruction and damaging of between 250 and 275 enemy planes was especially gratifying to the Navy which, by this successful raid, had forced the Japanese Combined Fleet to shun Truk, its base since July 1942, in favor of safer areas closer to home.

After clearing Truk, Hunt, in company with carrier Enterprise (CV-6), cruiser San Diego (CL-53), and five other destroyers, left the main body of the task force to raid "leapfrogged" Jaluit Atoll, Marshall Islands, 20 February 1944.

The next day she anchored in Majuro Lagoon from which, after a brief visit to Pearl Harbor, she put to sea as a part of the screen of the Bunker Hill carrier task group (TG 58.2) bound for the Palau Islands 22 March.

Intense and accurate antiaircraft fire from Hunt and her sister ships drove off three flight groups of Japanese torpedo bombers as strikes continued during the next 3 days.

On that day, Admiral Raymond A. Spruance receivedj a warning from submarine Flying Fish (SS-229) that an enemy carrier force was approaching from San Bernardino Strait.

About an hour and a half later, the major phase of the battle, nicknamed "The Marianas Turkey Shoot", opened when the American flattops launched their fighters to intercept the first of four raids from the Japanese carriers.

When marines landed on Peleliu 15 September, planes from these carriers supported the efforts on shore until the determined leathernecks finally stamped out the last organized resistance of the dogged Japanese defenders.

Hunt accompanied the carriers off Northern Luzon during the landings on Leyte 20 October while they struck again and again at Japanese airfields throughout the Philippines to eliminate enemy airpower during General MacArthur's long-awaited return.

The next day Franklin maneuvered closer to the Japanese mainland than had any other U.S. carrier up to that point in the war to launch a fighter sweep against Honshū and later a strike against shipping in Kobe Harbor.

Suddenly a single enemy plane broke through the cloud cover and made a low level run to drop two semi-armor-piercing bombs on the gallant ship.

Hunt continued to guard the carriers as they gave direct support to troops on Okinawa, taking time out on 4 separate days for radar picket duty in dangerous waters.

On the latter date while on a cruise to the Caribbean she sped from San Juan, Puerto Rico to join attack carrier Saratoga (CVA-60) in the Mediterranean to augment the 6th Fleet during the Near Eastern crisis which had necessitated the landing of marines in Beirut, Lebanon to check aggression.

She completed transit of the Suez Canal 11 September for Massawa, Ethiopia, and after calling at Aden, Arabia, set course 14 October for the Mediterranean and maneuvers with the 6th Fleet en route home to Newport, arriving 13 November.