Wimbee served in what Samuel Eliot Morison has called the "Hooligan Navy," a motley assortment of sailing ships and pleasure craft assembled by the Navy to combat the U-boat menace before America's huge antisubmarine warship production program hit full gear. She was renamed Wimbee and was placed in service at Port Everglades, Florida, on 11 September 1942.
Assigned to the 7th Naval District, Wimbee served only five months in the Navy, for the most part conducting anti-submarine patrols in the Gulf of Mexico. On 17 March 1943, she was placed out of service. Struck from the Navy List on 28 June 1944, she was transferred to the Maritime Commission and sold on 7 February 1945 to Mr. Paul Liskey of Harrisonburg, Virginia.