Prior to her NOAA career, she was delivered to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries in 1967 as US FWS Oregon II, but not commissioned.

She also has a self-contained hydraulic MOCNESS winch for the collection of zooplankton and nekton with a maximum pull weight of 3,000 pounds (1,400 kg) and a drum capacity of 7,972 feet (2,430 meters) of 0.68-inch (17.3-mm) wire rope.

His actions were credited with limiting the damage and saving the ship, and for his courage and heroism in ensuring the safety of personnel and in fighting the fire, he received the Department of Commerce Silver Medal later in 1989.

[3] On 28 February 1999, Oregon II was 25 nautical miles (46 kilometres) off Cape Canaveral, Florida, bound for Pascagoula when she sighted two men and a woman clinging to a capsized 25-foot (7.6-meter) fishing boat in growing darkness and 6-to-8-foot (1.8-to-2.4-meter) seas.

The three people had been unable to send any distress signal, had been in the water for about five hours, were beginning to suffer hypothermia, and were in real danger of perishing during the upcoming night when Oregon II rescued them.

She achieved a milestone on 27 July 2012, when she departed Pascagoula on her 300th research cruise, an annual assessment of red snapper and shark populations in the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic Ocean.

By that time, she had logged 10,000 days at sea and more than 1,000,000 nautical miles (1,900,000 kilometres), and her projects had taken her as far south as the Amazon River delta in Brazil and as far north as Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

[9] The program for the ceremony cited her achievement as follows: The NOAA Ship OREGON II is recognized for the rescue of two men and one woman whose 25-foot boat capsized in heavy weather off the Florida coast.

With darkness falling and the vessel drifting helplessly in the Gulf Stream and authorities unaware of their situation or their position, the three would almost surely have perished were it not for the vigilant watchstanding and prompt rescue efforts of the OREGON II.