the Eastern Attack Group, Melvin began launching torpedoes soon after 0300, claiming hits on , which sank at about 0338. (Other reports, including from a survivor of the Fusō Battle of Surigao Strait, report rolling and sinking in about 40 minutes. Following their attack, the destroyers withdrew up the Dinagat coast to Hibuson, from where they witnessed the barrage from Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf's battle line. 1945 Within 48 hours, Melvin was en route to Hollandia, and escorting resupply convoys to the Philippines into December, when she returned to the Solomon Islands to rehearse for the assault on Luzon. She stood out of Purvis Bay, Florida Island on 25 December, escorting transports to Manus and then on to Lingayen Gulf. She arrived with her charges on 11 January 1945 and provided illumination, naval gunfire support and screening. She covered the landings until the 15th. From Luzon, Melvin sailed south to Leyte, then to the Carolines, screening the Fast Carrier Task Force (TF 38/58). Steaming north with that force on 10 February, Melvin guarded the carriers as their aircraft raided Honshū and then provided air cover during the Iwo Jima campaign. On the 21st, she aided as she was attacked then escorted her to Eniwetok for repairs. By mid-March, she had rejoined the fast carriers at Ulithi, sailing northwest with them on the 14th to prepare the way for the Okinawa campaign. For the next 61 days, Melvin remained at sea, guarding the carriers, providing fire support and on picket station. After a brief respite at Ulithi in mid-May, she returned to the Ryukyu Islands on the 24th for raids on enemy installations in those islands and on Kyūshū. Mid-June she was docked in San Pedro Bay, underway again on 1 July as the carriers steamed north for their last deployment against Japan. In the next month and a half, the force operating off the Japanese homeland, shelling and bombing industrial and military targets on Honshū and Hokkaidō. Melvin remained with the aircraft carrier until 10 August, when she sailed north to join TF 92 in an anti-shipping sweep and bombardment of Paramushiro. With that mission completed on the 12th, she sailed east to Adak, Alaska, where she received word of the Japanese surrender and orders to return to Japan for occupation duty with minesweepers off northern Honshū. On 12 October, she departed for the United States, arriving at San Francisco