She was named for Philip Lansdale. Ethel S. Connor in command. After shakedown in the Caribbean , Lansdale departed Boston on 18 January for Neutrality patrol duty in the Caribbean. After escort training along the Atlantic coast, she screened transports from Charleston, South Carolina , to NS Argentia , Newfoundland , in late June, then departed Argentia on 30 June on a neutrality-patrol run to Iceland.
During the remainder of the year, she made three escort runs between Newfoundland and Iceland. For the next six months, anti-submarine warfare patrols and escort run carried her from the eastern seaboard to Iceland, the Caribbean, the Panama Canal , and the Gulf of Mexico. From 8β21 May, she patrolled the Atlantic between Puerto Rico and Bermuda with the light cruisers Savannah and Juneau , after which she resumed convoy screening out of Norfolk, Virginia.
Arriving Safi , French Morocco on 18 November, she patrolled approaches to Safi and Casablanca until 22 December, when she sailed for New York in a convoy of 41 transports and six escorts. Reaching New York on 10 January , she underwent overhaul until 30 January, when she departed with a convoy for Northern Ireland. As the convoy steamed south of the Azores on the 23rd, a German wolf pack of six to 10 submarines made early morning and late night attacks that sank three tankers and damaged two others.
Although scattered night attacks continued until the 27th, prompt, aggressive counterattacks by American escorts prevented further losses by the Americans.
Continuing escort duty out of Norfolk, Virginia, Lansdale made a run to Casablanca and back from 3 November to 17 December before sailing again for north Africa on 13 January She reached Casablanca on 1 February and continued the next day via Oran and Algiers to Tunis where she arrived the 10th.
