Most of the ship's wartime service was spent in New Guinea waters; with primary duties including patrol, convoy escort, troop transport, along with the shelling of Japanese positions.

In 1948, the ship spent over a week aground on West Beach, South Australia after bring driven ashore by a storm.

[1] Propulsion machinery consisted of two Admiralty 3-drum boilers, feeding steam to reciprocating vertical triple expansion engines, which provided 5,500 horsepower (4,100 kW) to drive two propeller shafts.

[1] Barcoo was laid down by the Cockatoo Docks & Engineering Company, Sydney on 21 October 1942, launched on 26 August 1943 by the wife of Richard Keane, the Minister for Trade and Customs, and commissioned on 17 January 1944.

[1] Barcoo was deployed again to New Guinea in late March 1945, and in April was assigned to United States Navy Task Force 78.1 to support the Borneo campaign.

[1] Barcoo was also involved in the North Borneo landings in June, then was assigned to general escort and fire support duties for the rest of the campaign.

[3][4] The ship had sailed over 72,000 nautical miles (133,000 km; 83,000 mi) from commissioning until the end of World War II on 15 August.

[2] On 11 April 1948, Barcoo ran aground at West Beach, South Australia, having been driven ashore by a violent storm.

[2][7] Despite attempts to lighten the frigate by removing munitions and stores, the combined efforts of three tugboats were unable to pull Barcoo off the beach.

[1] The ship resumed survey duties of the Australian coast from July 1952 to April 1956, then returned to Sydney and was paid off on 25 September.

[8] Other modifications around the time of her reactivation included the strengthening of the forward tripod mast, and the addition of a deckhouse on the aft deck.