USS Arcadia was one of four Klondike-class destroyer tenders built at the tail end of World War II for the United States Navy, and the third U.S.

Following shakedown training off San Diego, the destroyer tender departed the west coast to join the Atlantic Fleet at Charleston, S.C. World War II had been over for several months when she arrived at her berth on the Wando River on 1 December.

She was placed in full commission on 1 August 1951 and assigned a new home port, Newport, R.I., where she tended destroyers in the Narragansett Bay area.

The tender visited the Caribbean while exercising in yearly "Springboard" operations in the 1950s and 1960s, calling at ports in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the Virgin Islands.

In October 1964 Arcadia steamed to Orange, Texas to strip five mothballed high-speed transports for parts needed by active duty destroyers.