Three days later, he was commissioned an ensign and, at the end of February, reported to the Advanced Carrier Training Group, Atlantic Fleet, NAS, Norfolk, Virginia.

The transatlantic passage proved largely uneventful; but, as the Allied ships transited the Strait of Gibraltar, the British antiaircraft cruiser HMS Caledon, the destroyer Benson, and two minesweepers equipped with special jamming apparatus, Steady and Sustain, joined the convoy.

Observers in Wilhoite saw the attacking planes, torpedo-carrying Junkers Ju 88s, sheer away from the flak, fly aft along the transport screen to the northward, and then cut across the stern of the convoy, circling.

The destroyer escort responded by bringing all her guns to bear and fired such a heavy and accurate barrage that the German pilot dropped his torpedo about 2,000 yards (1,800 m) from its target.

For his part in directing Wilhoite's highly successful sector defense of UGS-40, Lt. Roth, the ship's commanding officer, received a Letter of Commendation.

Upon finishing fueling at Casablanca, Wilhoite departed that Moroccan port, her commanding officer, Lt. Roth, having earned a second Letter of Commendation for his ship's performance in towing Barr to safety, and sailed to New York with GUS-41.

After her arrival there, the ship received repairs at the New York Navy Yard before she sailed on 24 June for battle practices in Casco Bay, Maine.

She later acted as a target in training exercises for submarines operating out of New London, Connecticut, before she once more touched at New York and shifted south to Norfolk, Virginia, where, on 21 July, she joined a hunter-killer task group based around the escort carrier Bogue.

Four days after her assignment to Bogue's group, TG 22.3, Wilhoite sortied with that carrier and the rest of her screen, Haverfield, Swenning, Willis, and Janssen, bound for Bermuda.

Six minutes later, Haverfield, Janssen, and Swenning headed for the scene, detached to take part in the hunt while Wilhoite and Willis remained with Bogue as her screen.

Wilhoite had been a part of the powerful and sustained offensive during a period of heavy U-boat activity threatening the uninterrupted flow of supplies to the European theater that, since the Allied invasion of France in June 1944, had assumed great importance.

As the citation text concluded: "The gallantry and superb teamwork of the officers and men who fought the embarked planes and who manned Bogue and her escort vessels were largely instrumental in forcing the complete withdrawal of enemy submarines from supply routes essential to the maintenance of our established military supremacy."

Wilhoite returned to New York with TG 33.3 before the unit put to sea for a "barrier patrol" between Brown's Bank and the Nova Scotia entrance to the Gulf of Maine in early December.

The destroyer escort then spent a period of availability at the New York Navy Yard from 8 to 19 February before she engaged in training operations into late March, out of Casco Bay and Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

However, the U-boat had little time to savor the victory, for the entire scouting line of destroyer escorts moved swiftly to the scene to rescue their sistership's survivors and to commence ASW operations.

While engaged in that local escort duty, Wilhoite was forced to reverse course off Okinawa during a typhoon; the ship did not enter Buckner Bay, but proceeded instead back to Saipan.

Following a complete overhaul at the New York Naval Shipyard, Wilhoite shifted south to Green Cove Springs, Florida, where she was decommissioned on 19 June 1946 and placed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

In the next three years and seven months, Wilhoite conducted a total of 30 picket tours before she sailed for Hawaii and her new home port of Pearl Harbor on 4 March 1959.

Besides "special operations" on "barrier patrols" from Pearl Harbor, Wilhoite carried out search and rescue (SAR) missions, ready for any eventuality while on station.

Wilhoite subsequently took on board Eichi Nakata, a man who had been bitten by a shark, and carried him to Midway Island, where he received medical treatment.

The growing pace of incursions by North Vietnamese-backed Viet Cong communist guerrillas against South Vietnam had resulted in escalating American support of the latter.

On 19 June 1967, Wilhoite relieved Kretschmer on Operation Market Time station and assumed the duties of "mother ship" to two Navy "Swift" (PCF) boats, providing berthing accommodations for extra crew members and supplying them with food, fuel, and fresh water.

At approximately 20:00 on 11 July, a "Market Time" patrol aircraft detected a steel-hulled trawler running darkened some 55 miles (89 km) from the coast of South Vietnam, on a westerly heading.

Wilhoite, notified by radio of the trawler's course, set hers to close and identify the ship, commencing covert surveillance as soon as she picked up radar contact.

Ignoring calls to surrender broadcast by a psychological warfare unit embarked in Point Orient, the trawler was soon taken under fire, running aground in flames on a sandbar at the mouth of the River De Say Ky in Quang Ngai province.

Throughout the night, Wilhoite and the other ships intermittently fired into the beached trawler; the following morning, a party went on board the wreck to inspect the damage and learn the nature of her cargo.

Assigned to locate a lost Vietnamese Navy PGM, Wilhoite centered her search on a point some 30 miles (48 km) from the port of Da Nang.

On the latter day, the radar picket destroyer escort sortied for "Market Time" once more, relieving the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Ingham on station.

There, Wilhoite shelled an area heavily infested with Viet Cong, destroying or damaging several enemy junks that had attempted to infiltrate matériel from the north.

On 2 June, the radar picket destroyer escort departed the Hawaiian Islands for the west coast; and she arrived at Bremerton, Washington, a week later.