After serving at sea on the USS Arkansas during the late summer and early fall, he was appointed midshipman on 22 November and reported to Prairie State (IX-15) for further training.

As Allied forces gathered for the assault on Japanese-held Guadalcanal, Vance received orders to HMAS Canberra as a liaison officer with the Royal Australian Navy.

Following shakedown off Bermuda, Vance became the flagship for Escort Division (CortDiv) 45, a Coast Guard-staffed unit, and convoyed a group of oil tankers from Norfolk, Va., to Port Arthur, Tex., and back.

Vance, holding the "whip" position of the screen (where the ship had the duty of shepherding stragglers) came up through the convoy, sighted the periscope, and attempted to ram.

Vance remained on the scene for 10 hours, subjecting the U-boat to depth charge and hedgehog attacks, until relieved by a squadron of Navy destroyers.

On the morning of 11 May, four days after Germany had surrendered, Vance sighted a light up ahead in the convoy and rang down full speed to investigate.

In mid-October 1945, it underwent a pre-deactivation availability before proceeding south to Green Cove Springs, Fla. On 27 February 1946, Vance was decommissioned and placed in reserve.

Between March 1957 and the end of the year, Vance was homeported at Seattle, Wash., as a unit of CortDiv 5 and completed eight patrols on various stations of the Radar Early Warning System in the northern Pacific.

Each tour lasted approximately 17 days, and the ship maintained a round-the-clock vigil, with air-search radars, tracking and reporting every aircraft entering or approaching the air space of the northwestern United States.

Although it was only staffed at 60 percent of its complement (because many of its officers and men were ashore on leave or liberty and could not be notified in time to return to the ship before it weighed anchor) Vance was deployed for 12 days and completed a successful mission.

One month later, it departed Hawaiian waters for a 29-day patrol on the mid-ocean picket lines which provided radar coverage from Alaska to Midway Atoll.

In mid-January 1959. following routine overhaul and refresher training at Pearl Harbor, Vance again took station on the mid-Pacific stretch of ocean on its second DEW-line deployment.

After resuming DEW-line patrols late in the spring, the ship received orders in August 1961 designating it an ocean station vessel with TF-43, Operation "Deepfreeze 62."

The ship remained on station in the cold, bleak, southern waters into March 1962, when it headed home via Melbourne, Australia, and Papeete, Tahiti, to Pearl Harbor.

The ship soon resumed duties on the DEW-line and, but for periodic interruptions for maintenance, replenishment, and training, was devoted to the task of operating mainly off the Aleutian Islands through February 1965.

It operated in company with small minesweepers (MOSs) and embarked a Vietnamese Navy liaison officer to aid in the ship's "visit and search" activities.

The ship conducted two more "Market Time" patrols during its third WestPac deployment and, between missions, underwent a tender availability at Kaohsiung, Taiwan, rest and recreation at Hong Kong and upkeep at Subic Bay.