It was decommissioned on March 28, 2011 and transferred to the Philippine Navy as an excess defense article under the Foreign Assistance Act on May 13, 2011 as BRP Gregorio del Pilar.

[1] Hamilton was the first U.S. military vessel to employ the now common shipboard application of aircraft gas turbine jet engines and controllable pitch propellers.

Hamilton's flight deck and hangar, capable of handling both Coast Guard and United States Navy helicopters, extended the vessel's rescue and maritime law enforcement operations.

From 1965–1975, it served on Atlantic Ocean stations, collecting valuable oceanographic data and conducting frequent search and rescue missions.

In 1996, it transited the Panama Canal and served as the command and control platform for Operation Frontier Shield, a multi-agency effort to curtail the influx of narcotics into the United States.

It frequently patrolled the Bering Sea off the Alaskan coast at the Maritime Boundary Line (MBL) which separates the Russian and the United States' exclusive economic zones (EEZ).