Following shakedown training in the Caribbean, Hawkins arrived at Norfolk on 23 March 1945 to undergo conversion to a radar picket ship.

Emerging 26 May, she conducted training exercises before sailing 18 June from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for San Diego and Pearl Harbor.

After her arrival 8 July Hawkins prepared to enter the last phase of the Pacific War, but 3 days after her 12 August departure from Pearl Harbor for Eniwetok the Japanese surrendered.

The destroyer continued from Eniwetok to Iwo Jima and Tokyo Bay, arriving 27 August, and assisted in early occupation operations.

Arriving at San Diego on 11 April, the destroyer took part in training operations off the West Coast until sailing again for the Far East January 1947.

On this long voyage, completing a circuit of the globe, the destroyer visited Ceylon, Turkey, Gibraltar, New York City, and Panama before arriving San Diego 10 March 1949.

After NATO maneuvers, Hawkins returned to Newport 10 October and prepared to become part of the fleet sailing for what became known as the Korean War.

She also acted as plane guard during operations in the Formosa Straits designed to discourage Communist aggression against the friendly island.

For the next few years the veteran ship alternated picket duty and training operations in the western Atlantic with periodic cruises to the Mediterranean with the 6th Fleet.

She became part of DESRON-8 performing exercises in the Bahamas and Caribbean areas with one deployment of radar picket duty off the coast of Nicaragua returning to Mayport in December 1960.

In 1961 she operated with a special Task Group in connection with American space experiments and missile tests off Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Following additional Polaris missile tests with USS Andrew Jackson in February 1964, the destroyer steamed to Boston 21 March and was placed in commission, in reserve, prior to undergoing a FRAM I overhaul.

Hawkins took part in the United States space project in November 1969 when it was assigned to the Apollo 12 Atlantic Recovery Force.

Science fiction writer James D. Macdonald, then an ensign in the United States Naval Reserve, was assigned to her during this period, and reported to the captain one morning that the sounding tape used to check the water level in the ship's tanks had punched through the striking plate in one of the sounding tubes and the hull plate beyond it, indicating the hull was becoming unsound.

[4] The ship was scrapped in the late 1990s, but part of her superstructure is on display and training ground in the Zuoying Naval Academy, Kaohsiung City.