[1] From her home ports at Norfolk, Virginia, and after December 1950, Newport, Rhode Island, Charles R. Ware operated through 1960 with the Atlantic Fleet.

Her first major cruise, between 1 March and 9 April 1946, was to northern waters, where she aided in developing techniques for cold weather operations, crossing the Arctic Circle.

[1] Through two cruises to the Caribbean in the summer of 1949, Charles R. Ware aided in the training of members of the Naval Reserve, then took part in a large-scale Arctic operation before preparing for a 1950 tour with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean.

[1] The year 1957 was marked by assignment to escort the ship carrying King Saud of Saudi Arabia into New York harbor for his state visit, and a European cruise during which she exercised with Spanish destroyers.

That fall, she put to sea for North Atlantic Treaty Organization exercises and on 20 January 1958, she rescued a downed pilot from the aircraft carrier Essex while conducting air operations off the east coast.

[1] During the summer of 1959, Charles R. Ware took part in the historic Operation Inland Seas,[2] the first passage of a naval force through the Saint Lawrence Seaway into the Great Lakes.

She took part in the Naval Review in Lake Saint Louis on 26 June, which was taken by Queen Elizabeth II and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and sailed on to call at a number of United States and Canadian ports.