antisubmarine work in the northern Atlantic. She shuttled merchant ships back and forth across the ocean and operated out of the east coast ports on rescue missions to pick up survivors of torpedoed ships. One such rescue mission occurred on 26 March 1942. A Socony tanker, , was torpedoed off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and Tarbells lookouts sighted her distress flares a little before 0900. The destroyer rang up full speed; and, one-half hour later, she arrived at the scene of the attack. She dropped a depth charge barrage to drive off any U-boats lurking in the vicinity and then picked up 22 survivors. After a futile search for the enemy submarine, she disembarked the survivors at Morehead City, North Carolina. In May 1942, the destroyer began helping in the surveillance of Vichy French warships in the Caribbean Sea. To assure that those French ships were not turned over to the Germans and that, in accordance with the Panama Declaration, there be no transfer of European possessions in America to any non-American power, she was assigned a patrol area around Pointe-à-Pitre, Grand Terre Island, Guadeloupe, and her specific charge was the old training cruiser Jeanne D'Arc. Her rescue missions continued along with observation missions. On 16 May, she rescued 24 members of the crew of , torpedoed four days out of New York. On the evening of 25 May, when word reached her at San Juan, Puerto Rico of a U-boat attack on the destroyer , Tarbell got underway so rapidly that two of her officers and 13 crewmen were left behind in Puerto Rico. The following day, she picked up eight wounded Blakeley crewmen at Martinique, then participated in the search for the U-boat until the afternoon of 27 May. On 2 June, Tarbell rescued 19 survivors of . Two days later, the destroyer sighted survivors of the sinking of and brought them aboard, running her tally up to 31 men rescued on that mission. Following additional escort duty in the Caribbean and in the Gulf of Mexico, Tarbell began screening transatlantic convoys in mid-May 1943. Her first voyage was in the escort of convoy UGS-9 which was augmented by the latest development in antisubmarine warfare (ASW)—an escort carrier. The convoy reached Casablanca safely on 15 June. Tarbell returned to the United States at New York, underwent repairs, and conducted training before joining another Casablanca-bound convoy in August. Upon