Wildcat conducted shakedown training in the Gulf of Mexico before she underwent post-shakedown alterations at the Todd Shipbuilding Company in Galveston, Texas. Wildcat departed Galveston on 5 December, bound via the Panama Canal Zone for the western Pacific. She transited the canal and at Balboa underwent minor repairs from 11 to 21 December to her engineering plant before she got underway on the latter day for the Admiralty Islands. She made port at Manus on 23 January 1945 and, two days later, shifted to Humboldt Bay, New Guinea. Attached to Service Squadron 9, 7th Fleet, Wildcat soon sailed in convoy for the Philippines and, on 6 February, dropped anchor in Leyte Gulf, off the municipality of Dulag, on the eastern coast of Leyte. Two days later, the ship moved to San Pedro Bay, Leyte, where she remained into April, distilling and issuing fresh potable water to small craft and merchant vessels.

She received a tender availability alongside the Whitney (AD-4) from 11 to 18 April before shifting to Calicoan Island to transfer her deck cargo to SS Ben Ruffin. Wildcat then returned to San Pedro Bay on 23 April to resume her water distilling and issuing duties there. Wildcat got underway for Manila on the morning of 25 April, but grounded on a pinnacle near the approach channel to San Pedro Bay at 0855. After she was refloated, she proceeded to Manicani Island, Samar, where she was dry-docked in ABSD-5 on 31 May for repairs to her damaged hull. She remained there until 4 July, when she shifted to YFD-21 for the remainder of the repairs. Upon completion of that hull work, Wildcat undocked on 19 July, headed for Manila on 24 July, and arrived on 26 July to assume duties there as station ship.

Anchored in Manila Bay when news of Japan's final capitulation came on V-J Day (15 August 1945), Wildcat's sailors witnessed the "riotous celebrations, skyrockets and light displays" which accompanied that welcome news. Wildcat later moved to Subic Bay, Luzon, but returned to Manila on 5 September to resume distilling and distributing potable water to the various ships and small craft. The distilling ship remained in Philippine waters through the autumn of 1945 and headed home to the United States in December. Wildcat was slated to be returned to the War Shipping Administration for disposal at Norfolk, Virginia, in mid-1946, but the ship was retained for use in Operation Crossroads, the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. Wildcat subsequently performed support tasks with Joint Task Force 1 in the summer of 1946. Declared "radiologically cleared," (free from radioactive contamination) the distilling ship was released from "Crossroads" on 11 September 1946.

Decommissioned at the 13th Naval District on 17 January 1947 and returned to the War Shipping Administration that day, the erstwhile water distilling ship was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 10 June 1947. She was laid up at Olympia, Washington, with the National Defense Reserve Fleet. Wildcat was eventually broken up for scrap sometime in the mid-1970s.

• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
• "IX-130 / AW-2 Wildcat". Service Ship Photo Archive. Retrieved 14 March 2007.