The ship was renamed USAHS "Charles A. Stafford" after Captain Charles A. Stafford of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, who was killed during the air raid on Broome, Western Australia, while participating in the evacuation of Java on 3 March 1942. With her conversion complete in September 1944, the "Stafford", equipped with new boilers, a single stack in place of her original two, and other improvements, moved to her new homeport of Charleston. From that port the ship made monthly runs to the United Kingdom and back until May 1945, interrupting the pattern only once for a trip to Gibraltar and Marseilles. Steaming to New York at the conclusion of her last transatlantic run, "Charles A. Stafford" was overhauled for duty in the South Pacific.