After shakedown out of Guantanamo Bay Haleakala transited the Panama Canal and visited Chile and Costa Rica before arriving at San Francisco, 17 March 1960.

The fifth of a new class of ammunition ships designed from the hull up for carrying and transferring at sea the latest in munitions and guided missiles, Haleakala spent the first part of April with Vega (AF-59) conducting replenishment exercises to test new equipment.

Visiting Pearl Harbor, Yokosuka, and Sasebo, she provided services to various units of the 7th Fleet before returning to Port Chicago, California, 19 December 1960.

In October, in company with Mount Katmai (AE-16), she steamed to Long Beach to participate in Exercise "Covered Wagon", an effort to test realistically a representative Attack Carrier Strike Force in all of its wartime tasks in the face of opposition similar to that which might be expected of a potential enemy.

On 20 November she sailed for Yankee Station via Pearl Harbor to support combat operations in Vietnam, returning to Subic Bay 13 December.