"Starlight" arrived at Pearl Harbor on 10 August 1944. After a few repairs were made and the ship was provisioned, Regimental Combat Team 32 of the U.S. Army's 7th Infantry Division was embarked for amphibious assault training. On 17 September 1944, she sailed for the invasion of Yap in the Caroline Islands, but these orders were cancelled two days after she left port. Her new orders routed the ship via the Marshall Islands and the Admiralty Islands to the Philippines. As a unit of Attack Group Able, "Starlight" landed troops on the Dulag beachhead on the Philippine island of Leyte on 20 October 1944 as the invasion of Leyte began. When all troops had been disembarked from TransDiv 38, it sailed for Hollandia, New Guinea, as part of a "turn-around" resupply operation. "Starlight" returned to Leyte on 18 November 1944 with replacements for combat casualties, which she unloaded in eight hours under Japanese air attack. "Starlight" shot down two Japanese aircraft before steaming to Manus Island off New Guinea and Empress Augusta Bay off Bougainville in the Solomon Islands for amphibious training of the 145th Regimental Combat Team of the U.S. Army's 37th Infantry Division. "Starlight" returned to Manus on 21 December 1944 and sortied late in the month with Task Group 79.1 for Luzon in the Philippines.