She was the second ship named for Reuben James, a Boatswain's Mate who distinguished himself fighting the Barbary pirates.

Reuben James was laid down on 7 September 1942 at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Virginia, launched on 6 February 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Oliver Hiram Ward, and commissioned on 1 April 1943.

During the ship's first eastbound voyage, nine German bomber aircraft attacked its convoy off Algeria on 1 August 1944.

Operating south of Newfoundland, Reuben James was present when USS Buckley sank the German submarine U-548 on 19 April 1945.

Arriving at Houston, Texas, on 4 July 1945, Reuben James completed conversion to a radar picket ship on 25 November 1945, and was subsequently employed in the Atlantic and the Caribbean while being stationed in Norfolk, Virginia.