The vessel was the second named after Medal of Honor recipient Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, who was aboard USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and was the first American flag officer to die in World War II.

After this, the U.S. Navy elected to commission the Kidd-class for service in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean, as they were equipped with heavy-duty air conditioning and were also well suited to filtering sand, and the results from NBC warfare.

While in the Mediterranean Sea, USS Kidd visited the ports of Palma, Majorca, Spain; Beirut, Lebanon; and Catania, Italy.

She visited the ports of Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, and Mombasa, Kenya, while on station in the Indian Ocean before returning to the Mediterranean and calling on Benidorm, Spain.

On 16 February 1984, USS Kidd left Norfolk, Virginia, to participate in battle-readiness maneuvers as part of Operation United Effort.

USS Kidd cut short a port visit to Haifa, Israel, on 16 June in response to the TWA Flight 847 aircraft hijacking.

After visiting Rota, Spain, Kidd crossed the Atlantic under the power of her gas-turbine engines, arriving in Norfolk and ending her deployment on 2 October 1985.

During the Persian Gulf operations from 4 July to 2 October, Kidd led the first ten convoys of Kuwaiti tankers, reflagged with American flags.

This reflagging was in response to Iranian threats to close the Persian Gulf shipping lanes, through which more than 50% of the world's oil output passes.

Following another transit of the Canal and a brief stop in Charleston, South Carolina, USS Kidd ended her final deployment in Norfolk on 1 June 1997.

The vessel has been renamed ROCS Tso Ying, a Kee Lung-class guided-missile destroyer currently in active service of Republic of China Navy.