morning of 11 January, Anderson transited the Panama Canal during the day, mooring at Balboa that afternoon. After taking on fuel, the destroyer was underway once more, that evening, bound for San Diego, California. On the second leg of the voyage, all ships remained alert. Within two days of a departure from Panama, Andersons lookouts reported a torpedo track at 0113 on 13 January. Over the next four days, the ships sighted, challenged and identified two ships, both of which proved to be friendly: the British-registry Ocean Voice and the American-registry Kishacoquillas, on 15 and 17 January, respectively. During the passage, the ships honed up their gunnery skills, and OS2U Kingfishers simulated dive, torpedo, and high-level bombing attacks on the convoy. Off San Francisco Bay, the submarine jitters struck again, this time as Hammann reported a contact on the morning of 22 January and depth charged the "contact" with negative results. The odyssey from the East Coast completed, Anderson moored in a nest at Pier 54, San Francisco, at 1250 on 22 January 1942. Anderson subsequently unmoored on the morning of 25 January, after having undergone a brief tender availability in a nest alongside and stood out of San Francisco Bay, bound for a rendezvous with Convoy 2019. Hampered by the typical foggy conditions surrounding the bay area, assembly took some time, but ultimately, with all units present and accounted for, the convoy set out for the Hawaiian Islands. Anderson covered the entry of the ships into the Pearl Harbor channel shortly before noon on 2 February. Anderson spent the next two weeks either at or operating locally from Pearl Harbor. Her underway periods included a turn at the Pearl Harbor entrance patrol (11–12 February) and duty screening as that ship conducted gunnery exercises on 14 February. Underway at 0817 on 16 February, Anderson stood out to sea, joining up with Task Force 17 (TF17), consisting of Yorktown, , Louisville, Hammann, Sims, and Walke, under Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, later that afternoon. The next two weeks found the Yorktown task force working its way toward the southwest Pacific. On 6 March 1942, TF 17 rendezvoused with TF 11 under Vice Admiral Wilson Brown, to raid the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul. While Brown's and Fletcher's ships were en route to that area, however, Australian reconnaissance planes detected a Japanese invasion force moving toward the settlements of Lae and Salamaua, on