Emmons sailed from Norfolk 31 January 1942 on her shakedown to Callao, Peru, where she embarked Peruvian officers for Valparaiso, Chile, returning to Boston via several ports in Ecuador.

At Halifax on 5 July she joined an Army transport and a merchantman, whom she shepherded to a mid-ocean rendezvous with a British escort unit to take them safely into Iceland.

During the next 2½ months, Emmons joined in patrolling northern waters, guarding the movement of convoys across the North Atlantic, unceasingly alerted against the possible sortie of German ships from Norwegian bases.

Returning to Norfolk 9 August 1943, she voyaged to Gibraltar between 3 November and 19 December in the advance scouting line guarding the battleship Iowa, carrying President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Teheran Conference.

On 17 May, her group teamed with British aircraft to sink the German submarine U-616, and the next day, Emmons sailed for England, and final preparations for the invasion of France, 6 June.

[1] She remained off the beachhead for three days as watchdog for the vast armada of ships lining up with men and supplies, then retired across the English Channel to Plymouth, England, screening the battleship Texas.

Emmons returned to Mers-el-Kebir 10 July 1944 with a transport convoy she had brought across from Portland, then had escort duty in the Mediterranean ports preparing for the assault on southern France.

Her squadron put to sea 19 March 1945 for the dangerous, vital task of clearing Okinawa's waters to let assault ships close the beaches for the landings on 1 April.

One of the first planes to attack struck Rodman, and as Emmons circled the stricken ship to provide antiaircraft cover, both DMSs were overwhelmed by kamikazes.

Early in the morning of 24 March, Emmons and other destroyer minesweepers began sweeping assigned areas south and southwest of Okinawa.

On 6 April, the day of Japan's first and largest of ten mass kamikaze attacks called Kikusui (Floating Chrysanthemum), Emmons and her sister ship Rodman were assigned northwest of Okinawa to provide gunfire support for AM class minesweeper units.

At 1532, three kamikaze planes attacked Rodman, with one crashing into the forecastle starting huge fires and another one hitting close aboard to starboard with a bomb rupturing the hull and causing flooding in several compartments.

Emmons started to circle Rodman to provide fire support to the seriously damaged ship with an estimated 50 to 75 enemy aircraft heading their way.

Although lightly armed and highly vulnerable while operating in dangerous mined waters, the Emmons rendered heroic service in minesweeping, fire support, radar picket, anti-suicide boat, antisubmarine and antiaircraft screen missions.

A natural and frequent target for heavy Japanese aerial attack, she was constantly vigilant and ready for battle, firing her guns valiantly against a group of Japanese suicide planes striking in force on 6 April, and downing six of the attackers before five others crashed her in rapid succession, killing or wounding many personnel and inflicting damage which resulted in her sinking.