reclassified as a destroyer minelayer and redesignated DM-19 on 30 June 1937. Tracy was then assigned to Mine Division 1 and operated out of Pearl Harbor with the Battle Force. World War II In late 1941, her division entered the navy yard at Pearl Harbor for overhaul. On 7 December 1941, Tracy lay at berth 15 of the yard with her machinery, boilers, and guns dismantled. Most of her complement were living in the receiving barracks ashore, and only a skeleton crew was on board. As Japanese planes swept overhead, Tracys crew boarded their ship and sought to find ways to fight back. Some sailors went to and helped to man her guns, while others boarded and assisted in operating the battleship's antiaircraft batteries. Meanwhile, back on board Tracy, the remaining sailors, after assembling three .30-caliber Lewis guns and two .50-caliber Brownings, did their best to drive off the attackers. When the raid ended, a party of ten men from the destroyer minesweeper assisted in fighting the fires raging on board . Following the interrupted overhaul at the navy yard, Tracy went to sea to commence wartime operations. On 31 March 1942, she assisted in laying a minefield near French Frigate Shoals before returning to Pearl Harbor and conducting local operations. She then headed for Suva, in the Fiji Islands, on 23 July. Seven days later, in company with and , Tracy arrived at Suva before proceeding from there to Espiritu Santo. At bases in the Southwest Pacific, American forces prepared for their first amphibious assault of the war, the Solomon Islands. Tracy, in Task Force (TF) 62, arrived off the beaches of Guadalcanal on 7 August, as the guns of US cruisers and destroyers conducted a shore bombardment. She took part in the hard-fought campaign for the islands, engaged in the unglamorous but vital tasks of escort duty and antisubmarine patrol. She operated between Espiritu Santo and the battle zones through the summer and fall of 1942 before returning to Pearl Harbor in December for a brief refit. On 18 December, she set out for New Caledonia, escorting a west-bound convoy, and arrived with her charges at Nouméa on 2 January 1943. Designated a unit in TF 66, she operated out of Nouméa and Nadi, on occasion engaged in laying minefields around the American and Allied bases. She also delivered much-needed gasoline to Henderson Field, on Guadalcanal, for the