"Norman Scott" trained her new crew in Hawaiian waters, then sailed for Manus. She escorted transports from Manus to the Philippines until 9 February 1945. She then joined the fast carrier task forces of the Fifth and Third Fleets, ranging the western Pacific for strikes which supported the assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Later in the war, she closed the Japanese home shores as battleships bombarded them. On 15 July 1945, "Norman Scott" joined battleships , , and and destroyers and in attacking the seaport city of Muroran. These were the first surface ships to bomb the Japanese homeland.