She took one trip to Veracruz with emergency medical supplies, and was also on hand during aircraft bombing tests against decommissioned German ships, including the sinking of SMS Ostfriesland.

She, along with seven of her sisters, were constructed at Union Iron Works shipyards in San Francisco, California using specifications and detail designs drawn up by Bethlehem Steel.

On 3 February 1919, she was assigned to the United States Atlantic Fleet and sailed for Newport, Rhode Island via Santa Cruz, California.

Two days later she moved to Boston, Massachusetts and stood out of that harbor on 21 February, to escort George Washington which was transporting President Woodrow Wilson from the Versailles Conference.

On 1 May, she departed as part of a group of destroyers acting as a guide for a flight of Navy Curtiss NC seaplanes across the Atlantic Ocean.

NC-4, the remaining seaplane, arrived at Ponta Delgada 20 May and as she took off for the last leg of her journey, Harding got underway to provide radio compass signals at sea.

After the seaplanes landed at Plymouth, England, to complete the flight on 31 May 1919, Harding visited Brest, France and the Azores before returning to Newport 18 June.

[3] After the end of World War I, the U.S. Navy began to convert surplus ships to support its growing seaplane tender program.

She stopped briefly at Philadelphia before heading to Hampton Roads to support bombing tests on surrendered German ships, leaving Norfolk on 21 June.

[3][9] Harding subsequently conducted training exercises out of Newport and other East Coast ports until 27 December 1921, when she arrived at Charleston, South Carolina.