 Departing Mobile 7 January 1943 redesignated as AD-20, "Hamul" tended destroyers and other ships in Casco Bay, Maine until April and then sailed south to serve as flagship of the Destroyer-Escort Shakedown Task Group in Bermuda.In the following 19 months she tended some 348 DD's as well as removing demolition charges from .This German submarine was the first capture of a regular enemy warship on the high seas by the U.S. Navy since 1815.