February. On 25 February, the ship was designated as flagship for Commander, Air Force, Atlantic Fleet, the day after she cleared Limon Bay for the Galápagos group. There, Albemarle tended VPB-74 and VPB-209 from 27 February – 6 March, when the seaplane tender got underway to return to the Canal Zone. She steamed thence to Guantánamo Bay and Norfolk, arriving at the latter place on 17 March for an availability that lasted through mid-May 1945. Albemarle cleared Norfolk on 18 May for New York, laden with cargo, escorted by the destroyers and Dallas. Two days later, the seaplane tender sailed for the British Isles in CU-71, a convoy formed around the venerable . Albemarles mission was to bring back to the United States those patrol squadrons whose task in the Atlantic had been completed with the end of the War in Europe, and whose presence was required in the still-active Pacific theater. Ultimately, Albemarle reached her destination, Avonmouth, on 30 May, and brought her passengers – men of Fleet Air Wing 7 – back to Norfolk on 14 June. Albemarle made a second voyage to Avonmouth, sailing from Hampton Roads on 4 July 1945 and reaching her destination on 13 July. There she embarked 772 sailors and soldiers, the majority of the latter repatriated prisoners of war. Underway on the 17th, the seaplane tender arrived back at Norfolk on the 26th. Entering the Norfolk Navy Yard on 28 July for repairs and alterations to fit her out for duty in the Pacific, Albemarle was in the midst of this availability when the Pacific War ended in mid-August 1945. The Japanese capitulation suspended the work; and, soon thereafter, the orders to the Pacific to tend seaplanes were cancelled. Shortly thereafter, however, Albemarle underwent alterations of a different kind, to fit her out for different duty. With repairs carried out to the ventilation and berthing arrangements, the seaplane tender departed Norfolk on 25 September with 2,000 Navy replacements embarked, bound for the Canal Zone. She soon reported for duty as a transport under the Naval Transport Service. Albemarle cleared Coco Solo, for Pearl Harbor, but while transiting the Panama Canal suffered damage to her port screw. Reduced to proceeding with a single propeller, the seaplane tender put into San Francisco for repairs. Assigned to the "Magic Carpet" fleet – the ships given the job of returning American veterans home for rotation or