During the Battle of the Coral Sea on 8 May 1942, Coxswain Ramsden, a member of Lexington's crew throughout his career, remained at his exposed station, despite wounds, continuing to operate a rangefinder in the face of intense Japanese strafing and dive-bombing attacks until he died.

Following shakedown off Bermuda, Ramsden, manned by a Coast Guard crew and assigned to CortDiv 23, steamed to New York, whence she sailed, 19 December, with her first convoy, NY-47 to the Panama Canal Zone.

Before dawn on 1 April, Nazi bombers and torpedo planes led in by flare-dropping scouts attacked the Allied ships.

Availability and exercises at Casco Bay preceded another convoy run to Bizerte where men and supplies were being readied to push further into Axis-controlled Europe.

Transiting the Panama Canal 18 June 1945, she called at San Francisco, California, then continued on to Adak, arriving 8 July.

Navy Day celebrations at Ketchikan interrupted her postwar duties, but in November she got underway, with replacement troops and equipment embarked for Okinawa.

Based at Pearl Harbor, she operated on barrier patrol duty stations from Midway Island to the Aleutians until the spring of 1960 when she returned to the west coast for inactivation.