(The 3 year 7 month period between keel laying to commissioning was unusually long for a World War II submarine.)

After shakedown and further installations, Ling headed out to sea to test her equipment on 15 September 1945, 13 days after Japan had formally surrendered.

Ling was reclassified a Miscellaneous Unclassified Submarine (with the hull number IXSS-297), and struck from the Naval Register, 1 December 1971.

She arrived at her present home in New Jersey in January 1973, where she was restored to near-mint condition—scrubbed, painted, and polished for public tours—through the efforts of the association.

The compartments were refurbished and outfitted with authentic gear that recreated the bygone era of the World War II battle submarine.

X-rays showed that the submarine's five safes contained documents and metallic objects, but the combinations had long been lost.

On 27 January 2006, Jeff Sitar, the eight-time world champion locksmith, opened the safes using only his fingers and an electronic sound amplifier, rather than drills or explosives.

In the safes, he found a wide variety of objects, including a dozen pennies, two .45-caliber bullets, a ring of keys, many training and maintenance manuals and parts catalogs from the 1940s and 1950s, and two 1-US-quart (950 ml) cans of 190-proof ethanol.

[8] In the American-produced Russian language film Katya shot in 2010, the Ling was used for a set to depict the Soviet K-129 diesel-electric powered submarine which sank on 8 March 1968 northwest of Oahu.

The USS Ling was worked on by a group of volunteers, who pumped out the water and used compressed air to fill the ship's ballast tanks, allowing her to be refloated.