The fourth of a new class of ammunition ships designed from the hull up for carrying and transferring at sea the latest in munitions and guided missiles, Pyro spent the last part of December undergoing final trials at San Francisco.

She departed late that month, calling at Pearl Harbor; Sasebo, Yokosuka, Kobe, and Iwakuni, Japan; and at Okinawa and Hong Kong, while fulfilling her assigned tasks and providing underway replenishment services to various units of the 7th Fleet before returning to Concord, Calif. 15 August 1960.

Into the 1970s Pyro remained active with the Pacific Fleet, providing vital underway ammunition replenishment services during her annual deployments and refining her readiness and maintaining her high material and personnel standards during port periods.

In early 1994, the USS Pyro (AE-24) was decommissioned, struck from the Naval register in April 1997 and later, was moved to the Suisun Bay, CA, Nest A.

In February 2012, Pyro departed San Francisco Bay under tow for scrapping at EMR's Southern Recycling in New Orleans, LA.