31st and Tarawa on 18 September, but Stevens parted company with them and steamed for the West Coast before their 5 and 6 October raids on Wake Island. By the time of her departure from the west coast on the 6th, the assaults on Makin and on Tarawa had been made, and the atolls were all but secure. 1944: Central and South Pacific Though she had missed out on the first hop of the leapfrog across the Central Pacific, Stevens rejoined the 5th Fleet in time to be part of the second jump. Attached to Task Group 52.8 (TG 52.8), the fire support group, the destroyer participated in Operation Flintlock, the Kwajalein phase of the conquest of the Marshall Islands, in late January and early February 1944. She bombarded the islands before the landings and afterward delivered support gunfire to the Marines until it was no longer necessary. However, Stevens''' tour of duty with the 5th Fleet in the Central Pacific soon ended, for she cleared Kwajalein on 4 February 1944 for the South Pacific area. She stopped at Funafuti, in the Ellice Islands, from 8 to 13 February; then joined Lang (DD-399), Hogan (DD-178), Hamilton (DD-141), and Stansbury (DD-180) to screen Transport Divisions 24 and 26. The convoy divided on the 15th, and the Guadalcanal detachment, consisting of Stevens and Lang screening DuPage (APA-41), Aquarius (AKA-16), and Almaack (AK-27), arrived off Koli Point three days later. On 19 February, Stevens departed Guadalcanal to accompany Almaack to New Caledonia. They reached Nouméa on 22 February. After four days at the French port, the destroyer got underway in company with SS Japara back to the Solomons. On 4 March, she screened the merchantman into Tulagi harbor; fueled at nearby Port Purvis on Florida Island; then took station ahead of SS Mormacwren for a voyage to Efate. The Stevens put into Havannah Harbor on 5 March after parting company with the merchantman, which continued on independently to Auckland, New Zealand. Following 10 days in the Efate area, the Stevens sortied with Task Force 37 to bombard the Kavieng area of northwestern New Ireland. Until mid-March, an assault upon this area had been assumed to be necessary to complete the circle around the huge Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain Island and to provide a base for operations north to the Philippines. However, the decision to occupy part of the Admiralty Islands