Nields and his boat crew saved one officer, eight enlisted men, and Tecumseh's pilot, braving "one of the most galling fires" that Farragut had ever seen.

Following shakedown and training off the east coast, Nields escorted two tankers to Aruba, Netherlands West Indies, and Cristobal, Panama Canal Zone, returning to Norfolk, Virginia, on 11 April 1943.

On patrol on 21 May, awaiting the departure of the convoy on its return voyage, Nields received a submarine contact report from a British observation plane and immediately headed for the area.

Highlighting that period was Commander, Task Force 60, Rear Admiral C. F. Bryant, commending Nields for her role in the rescue operations for survivors of Marnix and Santa Helena from convoy KMF-25-A, the victims of a German air attack.

Nields, displaying outstanding seamanship in heavy seas and decreasing visibility, picked up 11 survivors and transported them to New York where they were turned over to representatives of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Assigned to coastal escort and patrol duties on her arrival at Oran, on 2 May, Nields was soon drawn into a submarine chase lasting four days.

Soon after 0100, the three destroyers, having been joined by Ellyson, Hambleton, Rodman and Emmons, commenced a box patrol, with Nields taking position third from the right end of the scouting line.

Nields, unable to fire without endangering others in the destroyer group, watched the hunted U-boat sink at 0612 and then screened the vessels detailed to pick up the 51 survivors.

On 15 August, in Operation Dragoon she was off St. Raphael blocking E-boat entry into the transport area and providing preliminary bombardment and neutralization fire of "Red Beach."

During that period, incident to her covering the passageways between the islands of St. Honorat and St. Marguerite, Nields came under heavy and rapid fire from German shore batteries.

Operating with that force for 10 days, she supported a motor torpedo boat attack at Vada on the 11th and assisted in a bombardment of the Bordighera area on the 17th.

Undergoing availability (extended to 3 July in order to effect repairs to her high pressure steam turbines) as hostilities ended in Europe, Nields next trained at Guantanamo Bay for duty in the Pacific.

After a round trip to Guam, escorting convoy OKG-7 to the Marianas, Nields took an active part in the occupation of the Ryukyus, as part of Task Force 53, along with tank landing ships (LSTs) engaged with units of the U.S. 10th Army in the uneventful disarming of Japanese positions on islands in Tokara Gunto and Amami Gunto.

On 6 October, in the vicinity of Tokono Shima, Nields sent visit and search parties to Hibiki, Amami, and Kunasiri, finding them to be engaged in transporting former Japanese POWs back to their homeland.

Detached from the 5th Fleet, Nields sailed for the United States on 31 October 1945 in company with DesRon 12, and arrived at San Diego on 21 November.

Sold to the Southern Scrap Material Company, Limited, of New Orleans, Louisiana, on 8 May 1972, she began her final voyage astern of the tug Betty Smith on the afternoon of 25 May 1972.