Following shakedown training in Chesapeake Bay and repairs at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Tolovana put to sea on 25 March bound ultimately for the western Pacific.

Since her tanks had not been contaminated with fuel oil and gasoline constituted the commodity in greatest need at Okinawa, Tolovana was earmarked for duty shuttling it between Ulithi and the combat area which was considered too dangerous for merchant tankers.

For the remainder of the war, the oiler steamed back and forth between Ulithi and the Ryukyus delivering aviation and automobile gasoline to the tank farm on Okinawa.

On 22 September, the ship emerged from the naval shipyard revitalized and began two years of duty along the western coast of North America.

She made frequent calls at Adak, Attu, Kodiak, and Anchorage, Alaska, while operating from Seattle, Washington, and periodically returned to California ports for visits and overhauls.

In August 1948, Tolovana bade farewell to the cold waters of Alaska and headed via the Panama Canal to Bremerhaven, Germany, where she stopped over for five days in mid-September.

The oiler returned to the west coast late in October, reaching Long Beach, California, on the 19th, and resumed logistics support missions along the western seaboard and in the Aleutian Islands.

Frequently, she called at such ports as Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia to take on petroleum products directly from the producers and then carry them to American bases in Japan and the Philippines.

The outbreak of war in Korea during the summer of 1950 increased Navy requirements for oilers engaged in direct support of the combat fleet.

Tolovana returned to Sasebo on 31 January 1952 and resumed her support role refueling and replenishing units of TF 77 operating off the Korean coast.

The remaining five deployments to the Far East involved routine logistic support for units assigned to TF 77 and to the Taiwan Strait patrol.

Though American resolve lessened the probability of a complete collapse of the anticommunist faction in Laos, the crisis did not die away until after Tolovana left the Far East in May to return home.

After another relatively routine assignment with the U.S. 7th Fleet between October 1962 and April 1963, Tolovana entered a decade in which her service mirrored the increasingly more direct involvement of United States forces in the Vietnam War.

From that point on, she concentrated upon replenishing ships in the combat zone, returning briefly to Subic Bay in the Philippines or to Yokosuka or Sasebo in Japan to refill her tanks.

She contributed to the success of underway replenishment operations - pioneered by the Navy during World War II - which, in turn, enabled American warships to remain in action for extended periods of time and bring the full weight of their naval might to bear on the struggle.

She called at various liberty ports in the Far East such as Hong Kong; Bangkok, Thailand; Yokosuka and Sasebo in Japan; and Kaohsiung, Taiwan.