LCI(G)-449 earned four battle stars in World War II for the Marshalls, Marianas, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, along with a Presidential Unit Citation awarded on February 17, 1945, for Iwo Jima and two Navy Unit Commendations. On February 17, 1945, while providing close-in fire support for a UDT beach reconnaissance mission at Iwo Jima, LCI(G)-449 and her sister ships came under intense Japanese fire from previously concealed batteries after being taken for a landing force. LCI(G)-449 was hit on her bow, gun deck, and conning tower, with twenty-one killed and eighteen wounded from a crew of seventy. Later that night, the men of the USS TERROR buried the dead of the 449 with military honors. The surviving crew honored those who did not return and also remembered sister ships that fought alongside her and suffered similarly that day, including LCI(G)s 346, 348, 438, 441, 450, 457, 466, 469, 471, 473, 474, which was sunk, and 627.