The ship fought in World War II, seeing action in the Aleutian Islands Campaign and in 1943 she survived hitting a mine that blew off her stern.

Abner Read was laid down on 30 October 1941 at San Francisco, California, by Bethlehem Steel and launched on 18 August 1942, sponsored by Mrs John W. Gates.

Abner Read held shakedown along the California coast into April 1943 then got underway with Task Group (TG) 51.2 for the Aleutian Islands.

After two weeks in drydock at San Francisco, Abner Read got underway on 14 June 1943 for Adak, Territory of Alaska.

Upon her arrival, she joined Task Force (TF) 16 and began patrolling the waters around Japanese-occupied Kiska Island in the Aleutians.

Abner Read had been conducting an antisubmarine patrol off Kiska for two days without any sign of the enemy, steaming in a figure-eight pattern, when, while making 5 knots, she was shaken by an explosion aft at 0150 on 18 August.

On the night of 8–9 June 1944, she was involved in an engagement with an Imperial Japanese Navy task force off the north coast of Biak.

[5] Antiaircraft guns blew a wing off the aircraft[3] but its bomb dropped down one of the destroyer's stacks and exploded in her aft engine room.

[5] The ship lost water pressure making firefighting impossible and at 13:52, a large internal explosion caused her to list about 10° to starboard and to sink by the stern.

[4] Abner Read's original stern section lost in the 18 August 1943 mine detonation and aft 5"/38 caliber gun, were discovered on 17 July 2018 by an expedition funded by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and run by Project Recover, a partnership of the University of Delaware, the University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the BentProp Project.

[2] They sent down a camera-equipped remotely operated underwater vehicle, which sent images of the gun, stern section and rudder control to the surface and photographed the wreckage.