[1] After shakedown in the Chesapeake Bay, Mauna Loa loaded on 5,600 tons of ammunition at Norfolk and departed Hampton Roads, Va., 19 December with a stopover at San Francisco for 2 days, arriving Pearl Harbor 17 January 1944.

Assigned to the service force, on 1 February she continued on to the Marshalls escorted by USS Manlove (DE-36), reaching Majuro 7 days later to begin rearming the fleet.

With the men on Mauna Loa moving the powder containers over faster than they could be removed to the magazines of the battleship, the cans gradually piled up to more than a hundred on Pennsylvania's forward deck.

On 2 March Mauna Loa sailed for the west coast, via Pearl Harbor, arriving San Francisco the 21st to replenish her cargo of ammunition.

After docking at Norfolk Naval Shipyard for alterations, she began refresher training out of Newport, R.I., 8 September; then served out of Earle, N.J., through the end of the year.

With 3500 tons of explosives and a crew of 220 aboard she caught fire about 5 miles off Ambrose Lightship, the entrance to New York Harbor.

[citation needed] On 27 September she again got underway from Earle for another tour in the Mediterranean until her return to Norfolk 17 November for 2d Fleet operations.

She sailed from Philadelphia 8 October for her home port, Bayonne, N.J.[citation needed] On 15 January 1962 the ammunition ship got underway from Norfolk for shakedown off Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into late February.

Following an off-base overhaul in Red Bank, Brooklyn, New York during the fall of 1963, the aft 3 inch- 50 guns were removed and replaced with a helo deck for VertRep ( vertical replenishment ) trials as the first ammo ship to develop this exercise.

For the next seven years Mauna Loa continued a pattern of upkeep and supply service along the east coast out of Norfolk and Earle, interspersed with training cruises and exercises in the Caribbean.