In May 1947, she returned to the Far East for three months on the China station, two weeks of which were spent off Qinhuangdao, on the Bohai Sea, observing Communist Chinese forces.

Scheduled exercises soon began, but, in addition, she was called on to lift foreign residents of Tsingtao to Hong Kong as Communist forces took over the former city in May.

On 15 October, while covering minesweeping operations preparatory to an amphibious feint against Kojo, 35 miles (56 km) north of the battlefront, one of her crew was killed and 17 were wounded by two near misses from Communist shore batteries.

Only slightly damaged, she continued her combat activities and for the remainder of her tour alternated gunfire support operations with carrier escort duties.

In July 1956 she contributed to the information gathering effort of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) by "chasing" weather balloons and in September 1959 helped TF 77 forestall overt hostilities during the Laotian crisis.

The "new" destroyer spent the next ten months exercising off the west coast and in mid-October 1963 resumed annual deployments to WestPac, her first mission to conduct operations with the carrier Hancock in the South China Sea.

Continuing to alternate 7th Fleet and 1st Fleet duty tours into 1970, each of Perkins's WestPac deployments returned her to the South China Sea where, off the coast of Vietnam, she served as plane guard for carriers on "Yankee Station" in the Tonkin Gulf, participated in "Sea Dragon" and "Market Time" operations, patrolled on search and rescue duties and carried out naval gunfire support missions during the conflict.

On 15 June 1987, Comodoro Py was sunk as a target off Mar del Plata by a torpedo fired from the Argentine Navy TR-1700-class submarine ARA Santa Cruz.