Rear Admiral Yates Stirling Jr., commandant of the Third Naval District and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, oversaw construction and presided over the commissioning.

As a fourteen-year-old boy nearly 50 years earlier, Stirling had lived aboard the first USS Dale (1839) when the old sloop-of-war, her masts removed and at the end of her long service, was the station ship at the Washington Navy Yard under his father's command.

She took part in fleet problems, made a good will visit to Callao, Peru, served as training ship for the gunnery school at San Diego, and cruised to Hawaii, Alaska, and the Caribbean on exercises.

The 5-inch guns operated in local control against a squadron of level bombers flying at about 10,000 feet above the battleships, but results were poor, with shots bursting well behind and short of the targets.

At 0815, an enemy dive bomber attacking the USS Raleigh from westward came under severe machine gun fire from all the ships in the nest, was struck, and crashed into the harbor.

While backing clear, a torpedo apparently aimed at the USS Raleigh passed under the bow of the Dale and exploded on Ford Island.

At 0844 the Dale stopped while the Monaghan dropped depth charges against a Japanese submarine close aboard the starboard side of the USS Curtiss.

By stopping the port engine and coming hard left rudder, she caused a flight of three Japanese dive bombers to overshoot their mark.

An attempt was made to stay with the assigned task force, as the maximum speed obtainable with one engine was 22 knots, but the Dale fell steadily behind.

Instead, under orders of Commander Destroyers, Battle Force, the Dale established an offshore patrol in sector one until the entrance of Task Group 8.4.

In the resulting Battle of the Komandorski Islands, at one time or another Dale took all of the Japanese cruisers under fire as well as screening the damaged Salt Lake City.

From 6 June to 30 July Dale served in the Marianas, bombarding Saipan and Guam, screening carriers during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and supporting underwater demolition teams.

Overhauled at Bremerton Navy Yard from August to October, Dale returned to Pearl Harbor, and then sailed to Ulithi to join TF 38.

Dale cruised with the logistics group on five voyages between Ulithi and the Okinawa area between 13 March 1945 and 11 June when she sailed for Leyte to join a carrier division's screen.

Anchored at Guam when the war ended, Dale escorted two ships in a convoy to a rendezvous 19 August off Japan, then sailed homeward, arriving at San Diego 7 September.