She was to support a crack unit of 200 Army Rangers in eliminating a German gun battery at Pointe du Hoc which commanded the Omaha landing beaches.

Although the Rangers found that the battery's guns had been removed before the landings, German resistance was stiff, and Satterlee provided gunfire support for the rest of the day.

Satterlee remained off the Normandy beaches for the next forty days, and then joined the invasion force which arrived off Saint-Tropez, southern France, on 15 August 1944.

In January and February 1945, she escorted the cruiser Quincy, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt embarked, on the Norfolk–Bermuda portion of his trip to and from the Yalta Conference.

She also provided escort for the aircraft carriers Saratoga, Hancock, and Wasp during night and day flight operations off Hawaii.