The high point of the patrol came when Barbero lobbed 25 rounds at a radar station on Batag Island with her 5 in (127 mm) deck gun.

Hartman also assumed command of a coordinated attack group (nicknamed a wolfpack) consisting of Barbero, Haddo, and Redfin.

On 2 November, after a lively passage of Lombok Strait during which picket boats and shore batteries fired on her, Barbero sank her first ship, a 2,700-ton troop transport.

Following a three-day stop at Mios Woendi to rearm with torpedoes and perform minor upkeep, Barbero embarked on the second portion of the patrol.

On 27 December, while she attempted the perilous repassage of Lombok Strait, fragments from an aerial bomb that narrowly missed Barbero close aboard aft damaged her port reduction gear.

The damage forced her to cover the distance remaining to Fremantle on a single screw, and put her out of action for the remainder of the war.

In September 1945, she was ordered to Mare Island Naval Shipyard – where she underwent pre-inactivation overhaul – and was placed in commission in reserve on 25 April 1946.

On 1 February 1955, Barbero entered Mare Island Naval Shipyard for her a conversion under project SCB 118,[6] equipping her to launch the Regulus I nuclear cruise missile.

She operated off the coast of California, firing her first test missile near San Clemente Island on 14 March 1956, until April 1956, when she transited the Panama Canal and joined the Atlantic Fleet, based at Norfolk, Virginia.

During that time, members of her crew pursued various fields of training and education at service schools in Hawaii and on the United States West Coast.

Summerfield proclaimed the event to be "of historic significance to the peoples of the entire world," and predicted that "before man reaches the moon, mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India or Australia by guided missiles.

She was struck from the Naval Vessel Registry on 1 July 1964, prior to being used as a target and sunk by the submarine USS Swordfish off Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 October 1964.