On 1 April, she helped to sink 24 Japanese submarines, prizes of war, and next day sailed for San Pedro, California.

After west coast operations and an overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Columbus cleared Bremerton on 12 April 1948 to join the Atlantic Fleet, arriving at Norfolk, Va., on 19 May.

Reassigned to the Pacific Fleet, Columbus cleared Boston, Massachusetts, on 8 November 1955 for Long Beach, California, where she arrived on 2 December.

During the late summer of 1958, her presence was a reminder of American strength and interest as she patrolled the Taiwan Straits during the crisis brought on by the renewed shelling of the offshore islands by the Chinese communists.

USS Columbus (CG-12) was subsequently recommissioned on 1 December 1962 (following a much shorter conversion period than either Chicago or Albany), though a year and half long work-up and testing of her new weapons system delayed her first deployment to the western Pacific until August 1964.