By 1 December "Grey Lag" was one of fifty-two ships of the mixed fleet composed at the time largely of Dutch vessels, mostly Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij (KPM) ships from the Netherlands East Indies, and other allied vessels from Singapore and the Japanese conquest of the Indies that had sought refuge in Australian ports. The ship was assigned the local fleet designation number of X-101. By 15 July 1944 the ship was in a group assigned to the sub-fleet of ships operating in the New Guinea coastwise service (ADSOS Fleet) as AX-101.