Benson departed Cayenne for the third time on 6 October and proceeded via San Juan, Puerto Rico, to the New York Navy Yard where she underwent a post-shakedown overhaul that lasted through mid-November.

A highlight of this period of her service came in March 1941 when she escorted USS Potomac (AG-25) while the yacht carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Bahamas for a holiday of fishing.

She got underway on 28 June to join Task Force 19 (TF 19) which was being formed to carry marines to Iceland to free the British troops who had been guarding that island for more active service.

At the end of March 1942, Benson got underway to escort a convoy all the way eastward to Londonderry Port, Northern Ireland, and returned to Boston early in May.

The accident also caused enough damage to Benson to keep her in the New York Navy Yard undergoing repairs until after Allied troops had invaded North Africa.

She arrived off the beaches there several hours before dawn on the night of 9–10 July and spent the next two days in the antiaircraft screen fighting off almost incessant raids by Luftwaffe warplanes.

At dawn on 9 September, the Allied troops went ashore on Salerno's beaches and met fierce opposition while the Luftwaffe struck continuously at the warships of the invaders.

3 turret of Savannah (CL-42) and pierced through the light cruiser until it exploded in her lower ammunition handling room, opening seams in the ship's hull and tearing a large hole in her bottom.

Valiant and efficient damage control parties stemmed the stricken cruiser's flooding, corrected her list, extinguished her fires, and enabled her to resume moving under her own power.

While supporting ground operations in Italy, she also conducted numerous shore bombardment missions and escorted other ships to various Mediterranean ports.

While on patrol duty in a fire-support area near Toulon, the destroyer blockaded enemy merchant ships in San Remo harbor and fired on supply buildings in the vicinity.

During this duty, she was attacked by enemy small combatants, either German E-boats or Italian MAS boats, but escaped injury and later escorted the French cruiser Georges Leygues in her bombardment of enemy-held shipyards in Pietra Ligure.

Ordered back to the United States for inactivation, Benson got underway from Yokohama on 4 November 1945 and moored at the Charleston Navy Yard, on 6 December.