As the ship's commanding officer later recalled, "the most memorable feature of the assault on Luzon, from the standpoint of the transports involved, was the long and difficult journey which the ships were forced to make through enemy waters between Leyte and Luzon." The convoy passed through the Surigao Strait into the Mindanao Sea on 5 January 1945 and entered the Sulu Sea west of the islands of Panay and Mindoro on the 6th.