forth through the transport formation. On 5 February Paul Jones rendezvoused with off Sumbawa Island to escort her to Timor. Shortly after they joined up, they were attacked by three separate groups of Japanese bombers. Paul Jones successfully dodged approximately 20 bombs, but Tidore was aground and a total loss. Fifteen crew members were picked up from a life boat, five were taken off the stricken vessel, and six more were gathered from the beaches. Paul Jones then steamed on to Java. The American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDA) commenced sweeps 24 February in search of enemy surface forces which might be attempting to make landings in the Java area, and to give what opposition they could to the Japanese advance. They encountered a Japanese covering force in the afternoon of 27 February and the Allies opened fire, beginning the Battle of the Java Sea. By 18:21, Paul Jones had expended her torpedoes. Dangerously low on fuel, she retreated to Soerabaja. The next morning Paul Jones and three other U.S. destroyers escaped encirclement by Japanese forces closing on all sides of Java, by hugging close to the shore line and laying smoke at high speed when sighted in the Bali Strait. Paul Jones and John D. Ford later escorted on to Fremantle, Australia, arriving 4 March. Following repairs at Fremantle and Melbourne, Paul Jones sailed 12 May for San Francisco. She reached San Francisco 29 June and was assigned convoy escort duty between California and Pearl Harbor which continued until the end of March 1943. Sailing in company with Parrott and Barker, Paul Jones departed San Francisco 30 March, transited the Panama Canal 6 May and reported to New York where she commenced convoy escort duty 28 May between North African ports and the U.S. Convoy assignments were carried out until April 1944, when Paul Jones was assigned temporarily to antisubmarine (ASW) patrol seaward of Chesapeake Bay. She then made convoy runs to several United Kingdom ports before being assigned as training ship for newly commissioned submarines at Balboa, Panama Canal Zone, which commenced 9 November and terminated 6 April 1945, when she sailed for New York. She was next assigned to a task group consisting of oilers and destroyers serving as an at-sea terminus tanker group, for the purpose of refueling escorts of east and west bound convoys between Horta, Azores and Casablanca, French Morocco. Paul Jones moored at Norfolk, Virginia 11