Hostilities ended during loading operations, her ammunition was offloaded, and the ship sailed for the Philippines, arriving Manila on 9 September.

En route, she touched at Subic Bay, contributed landing craft to the boat pool there, and then commenced taking on equipment of the 25th Army Division from the San Fabian beaches.

After riding at anchor for nearly three weeks while the approaches to Nagoya, southern Honshū, were cleared of mines, the squadron entered that port on 27 October.

Rankin embarked Navy personnel there, took on inoperable landing craft at Samar in the Philippines, and sailed for home, arriving San Francisco on 25 November.

Rankin was decommissioned on 21 May at San Francisco and entered the Maritime Commission's National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, California.

On 18 July 1958, Rankin was among the amphibious forces which landed 5,000 U.S. Marines in Lebanon, in response to a request from the Lebanese Government for assistance in averting civil war.

In early March 1959 Rankin departed Norfolk for a six-month cruise to the Mediterranean as part of the United States Sixth Fleet.

Operating regularly in the Caribbean, she repeatedly called at Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba.

In late February, she visited Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in company with Boxer (LPH-4) for the inauguration of president Juan Bosch.

In April, as a result of the unstable political situation in Haiti, the ship proceeded directly to a position off that country and patrolled in the Gulf of Gonave for thirty-one days until tensions eased.

Arriving off the coast of Santo Domingo, Rankin and other ships of PhibRon 10 commenced the mass embarkation and evacuation of over 1,000 refugees and U.S. civilian nationals.

In October 1966, Rankin was called on to render relief to the disaster area of Cayes-Jacmel, Haiti, after Hurricane Inez caused massive damage to the island.

After her regular overhaul period in 1967, Rankin returned to operations in the Atlantic and Caribbean with Amphibious Squadron Ten.

Deployed to the Caribbean from March to July 1968, Rankin visited San Juan, Guantanamo Bay, Panama, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Aruba and Jamaica.

In August 1968, Rankin participated in exercise "Riverine 68", which was designed to demonstrate to Marine and Naval Forces the latest methods of combating jungle warfare.

The new year, 1970, brought with it a period of operations off the eastern seaboard, and another July-to-December Mediterranean deployment, also memorialized in a cruise book, with the Sixth Fleet.

During the eight years after her 1952 recommissioning, Rankin won the Battle Efficiency Award six times, including an unprecedented five straight from 1956 to 1960.