Training and amphibious exercises – broken only by a repair period at the Todd Shipyard at Alameda, California, that summer – filled her time throughout the year 1953 and into the second month of 1954. On 19 February 1954, "Algol" departed the west coast bound for Japan. She entered port at Yokosuka on 9 March. In April, the ship participated in exercises at Iwo Jima, and June brought another series of exercises at Okinawa. The usual round of port visits and exercises followed. Early in August, she concluded a two-week visit at Hong Kong and headed – via Subic Bay – to Tourane and Hai Phong in North Vietnam. At those ports, the attack cargo ship embarked non-communist refugees and carried them south to Saigon in South Vietnam. "Operation Passage to Freedom" came on the heels of the defeat of the French by the Viet Minh and the division of the Vietnamese portion of Indochina into the communist north and the republican south. She made three voyages between the north and the south by 12 September at which time she headed back to Yokosuka. On 21 September, "Algol" shaped a course back to the United States. She entered San Francisco, California, on 7 October 1954.