She made practice torpedo runs, antiaircraft firings, and shore bombardments—exercises occurring in such an endless parade that it moved a Van Valkenburgh sailor to write that "the real thing could be no more of a strain."

Van Valkenburgh trained in Hawaiian waters through the end of December 1944 and, after a tender availability alongside Yosemite, headed for the western Pacific and her first combat operation, departing Pearl Harbor on 27 January 1945.

Van Valkenburgh soon commenced her patrols as part of the three-deep screen around the unloading transports and took her turn at firing gunfire support for the marines ashore.

As transports and freighters unloaded their holds and disembarked their mottle-garbed marines, Van Valkenburgh received orders to escort a group of empty ships back to the Marianas.

After joining that unit, Van Valkenburgh participated in landing rehearsals and exercises on neighboring Tinian and learned that the destination for that group was Okinawa, in the Ryūkyū chain, only 350 miles (560 km) from the enemy's homeland.

Van Valkenburgh's group was ordered to feint a landing on the southwest coast of the island to draw off the Japanese defenders, while the main force approached from the westward.

On the morning of 1 April, while the "Demonstration Group" gathered off the southern beaches, the 6th Army and several marine units splashed ashore on the western side of the island.

Due in large part to the work of Brown's party, the fires were extinguished; and, in spite of an initially dangerous starboard list, LST-884 reached Kerama Retto under tow.

That group remained as a floating reserve, occasionally detaching transports to disembark their needed troops and marines on Okinawa, until they sailed back to the Marianas, reaching Saipan on 15 April.

Four days later, Van Valkenburgh returned to Okinawa, and spent the initial part of that tour in the inner screen, patrolling the transport area just off the beach.

As Van Valkenburgh subsequently entered the anchorage at Kerama Retto, a group of small, rocky islands 15 miles (24 km) off the southwestern coast of Okinawa, her men saw the after-effects of other ships' encounters with the "Special Attack Corps", or, the kamikaze.

After seeing the devastation wrought by the suicide planes, Van Valkenburgh headed out to report and relieve J. William Ditter on radar picket station 14 (RP-14), as support ship to Wickes.

The destroyer picked up the ship's survivors; and her doctor, assisted by his pharmacist's mates, worked into the wee hours of the morning on the wounded, some of them badly burned.

Van Valkenburgh went alongside Daly and transferred her doctor, Lt. M. E. Smale, to her stricken sister ship, along with Pharmacist's Mate 3d Class Charles B. Reed, to attend the wounded.

Since neither Daly nor the other damaged ship required any further assistance, Van Valkenburgh returned to her station and later embarked Doctor Smale and Pharmacist's Mate Reed at Kerama Retto.

Between her tours on the radar picket stations, Van Valkenburgh received upkeep back at Kerama Retto and conducted one shore bombardment mission.

While thus engaged, she diverted her attention long enough to lay down a barrage to discourage a seventh Japanese plane "who appeared to be calculating his chances in on the attractive target of the two slow-moving destroyers."

At a range of 12 miles (19 km), the plane suddenly disappeared from the radar screen, and Van Valkenburgh claimed that her antiaircraft fire had scored again.

The massive B-29 raids on the home islands, together with the attrition caused by steady pounding by American carrier-based air power, had slowed the Japanese down considerably.

For the ensuing fortnight, the ship rested at San Pedro Bay, Leyte, enjoying a breather from the hectic pace of operations that had lasted for over two months.

Assigned to operate along the China coast between Formosa and Shanghai, the force searched for any signs of Japanese surface ship activity in that area but found no opposition of any kind.

The task force commander offered consoling thoughts: "If the lack of action is a disappointment at least we have the satisfaction of knowing that the East China Sea was under 'our control.'"

On 7 September, Van Valkenburgh stood out of Buckner Bay in company with Anthony, Wadsworth, Beale, and Ammen, as screen for the escort carriers Suwannee, Chenango, Cape Gloucester, and Birmingham, bound for Japan and occupation duty in the erstwhile enemy's waters.

On 15 September, as Van Valkenburgh steamed into Nagasaki harbor, every available vantage point topside was occupied by men silently taking in the incredible devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city over a month before.

During her week there, Van Valkenburgh stood by as Allied prisoners of war were taken on board the hospital ship Haven which lay moored at the port's principal dock.

For the next six weeks, Van Valkenburgh remained in Japanese waters, carrying out two courier trips to Wakayama, Honshū, Japan, on the Inland Sea.

Finally, her tour of duty in the Far East completed, Van Valkenburgh sailed for the United States on 17 November, departing Sasebo on that day, bound for the West Coast.

Van Valkenburgh subsequently departed Norfolk on 2 May; transited the Panama Canal between 20 and 22 May; and reached Yokosuka, Japan, on 17 June, via San Diego, Pearl Harbor, and Midway.

Over the ensuing days, Van Valkenburgh expended over 2,400 rounds of ammunition against a variety of targets—ranging from houses to bunkers, artillery positions to sampans, trenches to tents and supply dumps, frequently using air spotters.

She completed a circumnavigation of the globe, sailing via Singapore, Federated Malay States; Colombo, Ceylon and Ras Tanura, Aden; the Suez Canal—transiting that waterway on 14 November; Naples and Genoa, Italy; Cannes, France; and Gibraltar; reaching Norfolk, Virginia, on 12 December.