Except for a six-month period from December 1919 to June 1920 when she was in reduced commission, Stringham remained fully active with the Atlantic Fleet until the middle of 1922.

She remained inactive until 1940, when she was apparently moved to the Norfolk Navy Yard for conversion to a high-speed transport (APD).

Two days later, she put to sea on the first of many resupply voyages to help bolster the marines defending the beachhead on Guadalcanal.

Neither the United States nor Japan enjoyed the overwhelming naval superiority which in almost every other case ensured victory for the greater force.

While the contribution of the larger elements of the American fleet cannot be overlooked, the struggle for Guadalcanal was to a great extent the battle of the high-speed transport.

Not long after her scrape with the submarine, Stringham was ordered out to join the group of ships attempting to tow the destroyer Blue, torpedoed the previous evening, into Tulagi.

Stringham resumed her supply runs in the Solomons until 5 October, when she got underway from New Caledonia to return to the California coast.

Her return to action, however, was short-lived for—while operating in Pepasala Bay in the Russell Islands on 26 February 1943—a heavy squall forced her aground on a reef.

In maneuvering clear of the reef, she was forced to back down to avoid a collision with the destroyer Humphreys and damaged her starboard propeller.

On the day after Christmas, Stringham joined the American forces which outflanked the Bismarck Barrier at Cape Gloucester, near the western terminus of New Britain.

Between these two operations, Stringham helped land troops in the Green Islands, the northernmost subgroup of the Solomons, located between Buka and New Ireland.

During the spring of 1944, American military thinking focused increasingly upon the Central Pacific invasion route to Japan.

Stringham, was at Purvis Bay, Florida Island, in the midst of exercises preparatory to the invasion of the Palaus when UDT 7 rejoined her on 5 September.

That afternoon, she towed Afoa to Kossol Passage, and then returned to work with the UDT teams until 27 September, when she headed for Manus.

On the night of 3 October, a fire broke out on Clemson and swept across Stringham amidships and aft, igniting the UDT teams' rubber boats and bags of explosives.

The former succeeded in crashing LST-599 while the latter gave up his plunge in the face of Stringham's heavy antiaircraft fire, dove on a destroyer, but missed both American ships.