 Allocated to the Navy by the Maritime Commission's War Shipping Administration in late 1944, the ship was renamed "Vandalia" on 18 October 1944, being designated as unclassified miscellaneous vessel IX-191.She was accordingly taken over from the War Shipping Administration on 23 December 1944 and was commissioned on the same day, Lieutenant R. P. Morrison, USNR, in command, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.