After completing her Caribbean shakedown on 18 October, Hank joined Missouri, Texas, and Arkansas at New York and then sailed for the Pacific reaching Pearl Harbor on 6 December via the Panama Canal and San Francisco.

Among the ships which Hank helped screen in the 116 unit task force were battle veterans such as heavy cruiser Indianapolis, aircraft carriers Bunker Hill, Hornet, Wasp, Lexington, Essex, Yorktown, Enterprise, and Saratoga, and battleships Indiana, Missouri, South Dakota, and Washington.

Deploying to the Iwo Jima area the afternoon of 18 February, Hank remained there to provide support for the invasion which began the following day, and she operated off the bitterly contested island until returning to Ulithi on 4 March.

After participating in the bombardment of enemy shore positions—including radio facilities, a weather station, and an airfield on Minami Daito Shima on 27–28 March, Hank headed for Okinawa.

Her task force furnished support for landings made on that heavily fortified island on 1 April, and Hank spent a busy week screening the carriers and stopping kamikazes with highly effective antiaircraft fire.

Hank spent most of this period on hazardous and lonely radar picket duty, steaming 50 miles (80 km) from the main body of ships to provide early warning of enemy air attacks.

Gabilan had difficulty diving in heavy seas and broached, and the destroyers' gunfire straddled her an estimated ten times before she finally submerged and broke contact.

The veteran ship operated primarily out of New Orleans for reserve training cruises and good will visits to Caribbean and Central American ports until sailing on 6 September 1949 for the Mediterranean.

Screening, blockade patrol, and shore bombardment constituted the destroyer's duties along the Korean coast until she sailed for the United States, reaching Norfolk on 9 June via San Diego, the Panama Canal, and Guantanamo.

After a yard overhaul at Norfolk, Hank resumed the peacetime training operations, Caribbean exercises, and annual deployments to the Mediterranean that kept the fleet ready to serve America well at any moment on the seas.

She participated in training for Project Mercury, America's first man-in-space effort, off the Virginia capes, and she was designated one of the recovery ships when Astronaut Lieutenant Commander Scott Carpenter made his orbital flight 24 May 1962.