After fitting out at New York, Benham conducted her initial shakedown training in Long Island Sound before sailing southeast to Bermuda in early January 1944.

After arriving in Kingston, Jamaica on 14 January, she carried out four weeks of shore bombardment, anti-submarine, and carrier escort exercises before returning to New York on 13 February.

Following post-shakedown availability, she proceeded to Norfolk, Virginia on 28 February, joined with Piedmont, and escorted the destroyer tender through the Panama Canal to Hawaii, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 27 March.

Benham then conducted destroyer type training—carrier screen exercises, antiaircraft gunnery practice, and antisubmarine drills—in preparation for Operation Forager, the planned invasion of the Marianas.

Steaming to Saipan in the Marianas on 15 June, Benham screened the two escort carriers as they launched air strikes against Japanese ground troops ashore.

The destroyer remained with the escort carriers until 2 July when she shifted to the screening and fire support group (TG 52.12) to back up mopping-up operations on Saipan.

She quickly loaded supplies and ammunition for the next phase of the operation and escorted a convoy of assault troops from Eniwetok to Tinian, arriving off that island on 19 July.

After the landings on 24 July, the destroyer spent the rest of the month firing at targets around Sunharon town during the day and covering Marine Corps battalions with defensive gunfire at night.

On 28 August, in company with TG 38.2—consisting of Intrepid, Hancock, Bunker Hill, Cabot, Independence, two battleships, four cruisers, and seventeen other destroyers—Benham steamed west for a large raid on the Palaus.

On 6 and 7 January, while the American invasion forces suffered under enemy air attacks in the South China Sea and at Lingayen Gulf, the fast carriers retaliated against airfields on Luzon in a successful attempt to suppress these Japanese strikes.

In an effort to secure the American supply line between Mindoro and Lingayan Gulf, TF 38 steamed through the Luzon Strait into the South China Sea to strike at nearby Japanese defensive installations and shipping.

Although plagued by bad weather, the American carriers raided Japanese shipping along the coast of Indochina on 12 January and struck at airfields and ports on Formosa, Hainan, and in China on the 15th and 16.

With operations on Mindoro and Luzon well underway, the destroyer's crew received two weeks of rest while the fast carriers geared up for their next mission, a major raid on the Japanese home islands.

In company with other destroyers in the screen, she covered the carriers during the American attacks on the Kyūshū airfields and enemy naval installations on the shores of the Inland Sea.

The destroyer made her first radar contact with enemy "snoopers" on 17 March and fired on, and drove off, a Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter that closed her position the following morning.

On 6 April, five days after landings began on Okinawa, Japanese air activity increased dramatically as they launched the first of their massed kamikaze attacks against American forces in and around the Ryūkyūs.

After a brief repair period at Ulithi in mid-May, she once again screened the fast carriers during the naval air strikes against Kyūshū and Nansei Shoto in early June.

After a brief trip to Iwo Jima to pick up several million yen of military currency for use in Japan, the destroyer took up station near the port bow of Missouri for the official surrender ceremony on 2 September.

Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, with her home port at Newport, Rhode Island, the destroyer conducted shakedown operations and training exercises along the east coast for the rest of that year.

In company with Noa, the warship visited ports in Newfoundland, Iceland, Ireland, England, Sweden, Germany, Libya, and Italy before returning home on 16 September.

Departing Newport on 1 June, Benham and the rest of Destroyer Division 242 (DesDiv 242) steamed south, passed through the Panama Canal, and crossed the Pacific Ocean to Japan.

After a short leave and upkeep period, she spent most of 1955 conducting brief training missions out of Newport for the Atlantic Fleet antisubmarine and destroyer force commands.

Then, given the growing tensions in the Middle East over the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal, her crew began intensive training exercises out of Newport in preparation for a possible emergency deployment.

In response, on the morning 6 November, President Dwight D. Eisenhower put all American warships on alert; and some, including Benham, received orders to reinforce the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean.

Following three months of local exercises out of Newport, the destroyer conducted a midshipman summer cruise to South America in June and July visiting Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; St. Thomas, Virgin Islands; Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; and Culebra, Puerto Rico.

Over the next four months, the warship served in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, supporting American troops as they helped restore order in Lebanon.

Tapped for foreign transfer under the Military Assistance Program (MAP), the warship moved to the Boston Naval Shipyard in early 1960 for repairs and a substantial overhaul.