During a brisk engagement with German batteries in the Bombardment of Cherbourg on 25 June, Barton was slightly damaged while delivering effective gunfire support.

Aboard "Barton" during the Normandy operations was actor Robert Montgomery, a Lieutenant Commander, intelligence officer, and Assistant Naval Attache in London.

[2] Repair party member MMFN Anthony Palm (Johnstown, PA) was dispatched to assess the extent of damage caused by the incoming round.

After several months patrolling the waters between Okinawa and Taiwan and participating in hunter-killer exercises with Catfish, Barton steamed around the southern tip of Africa—making stops in Kenya, South Africa, Brazil, and Trinidad along the way.

Barton began a schedule of training exercises and Atlantic Fleet maneuvers out of Norfolk, generally operating in the Virginia Capes area and the West Indies.

Following an overhaul in the Charleston Naval Shipyard in 1955, the destroyer rejoined the Atlantic Fleet for three months of hunter-killer antisubmarine warfare training in preparation for a Mediterranean cruise.

After participating in NATO Exercise "Whipsaw", Barton and Soley steamed to Port Said, Egypt, to escort a convoy through the Suez Canal and into the Persian Gulf for a routine six-week patrol with the Middle East Force.

On 29 October, the two destroyers started south from the vicinity of Abadan, Iran, to leave the gulf, circumnavigate the Arabian Peninsula, and retransit the Suez Canal.

William M. Wood and she received orders to escort the cruiser Canberra as she carried President Eisenhower to Bermuda to confer with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.

The destroyer then conducted ASW patrol and spent time in Norfolk in upkeep before going into drydock in Newport News for hull repairs.

On 5 February 1958, while steaming to Norfolk from the Caribbean, the destroyer received orders to assist a badly damaged Panamanian merchant ship, SS Elefterio.

Barton's damage control parties could not contain the flooding caused by a large hole in Elefterio's hold, so she embarked the tanker's crew and passengers and transported them to Norfolk.

In 1962, Barton covered the Project Mercury space shot carried out on 18 May in which Colonel John Glenn, USMC, became the first American to orbit the Earth.

The destroyers held "open ship" for general visiting at Copenhagen, Denmark, and Helsinki, Finland, before heading home on 10 September.

In July, Barton also steamed to Quebec and Montreal, and continued via the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Cleveland, Ohio, for a month of training combined with public awareness work about the Navy and its mission.