Southard was laid down on 18 August 1918 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by William Cramp & Sons; launched on 31 March 1919, sponsored by Miss Francesca Lewis Steward; and was commissioned on 24 September 1919.

She next headed for New York City to join six other destroyers in escorting the British battlecruiser Renown out to sea as that warship departed carrying Edward, the Prince of Wales, after his visit to the United States.

On 19 November 1919, Southard departed Newport, Rhode Island, for duty with U.S. naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean.

She then departed the Dalmatian coast, transited the Suez Canal, and, after calling at ports in Egypt, Arabia, India, and China, put in at Cavite in the Philippines on 16 February 1921.

Stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Southard departed that base on 5 December 1941 to participate in exercises in the vicinity of Johnston Island.

Southard was still at sea when World War II broke out in the Pacific on 7 December 1941 with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

After escorting a convoy to San Francisco and back, Southard resumed patrols in Hawaiian waters on 15 February 1942.

The ships reached San Francisco on the 31 May 1942, and Southard spent the next 10 days undergoing limited repairs in the Mare Island Navy Yard.

When the beachhead on Guadalcanal had been successfully established, Southard settled down to a routine of screening convoys from New Caledonia and the New Hebrides to the Solomon Islands.

For almost eight months, she steamed back and forth between Espiritu Santo, Efate, Nouméa, Tulagi, Purvis Bay, and Guadalcanal.

Her return to the Southwest Pacific meant a resumption of patrol and convoy escort duty to support the continuing Solomon Islands campaign.

The convoy arrived off Cape Torokina on 31 October 1943, and Southard joined other elements of the fleet in bombarding Bougainville.

These patrols and cruises with convoys occupied Southard's time until 21 November 1943, when she passed through Lengo Channel bound for Nouméa.

From 25 November to 16 December 1943, Southard stayed in the vicinity of New Caledonia, participating in drills and screening ships coming into and out of Nouméa.

Her field of operations was expanded in April and May 1944 to include parts of the Bismarck Archipelago as she began escorting convoys to Borgen Bay on New Britain.

On 12 August 1944, she sortied as part of a task group which also included six escort aircraft carriers and five other destroyer-type ships, bound for the Solomons.

Back in Seeadler Harbor by 30 October 1944, Southard spent all of November and most of December 1944 engaged in drills and undergoing repairs at Manus.

The plane's engine embedded itself in the ship while its fuselage ricocheted off her starboard side, tearing a trough 6 feet (1.8 m) wide in her deck as it went.

For the next three months, she swept mines, screened transports, and delivered mail to the fire support units around Okinawa.

However, on 17 September 1945, while maneuvering at anchor during Typhoon Ida, her screws were fouled by a drifting antisubmarine net, and she grounded on a pinnacle reef off Tsuken Shima, an island a few miles east of southern Okinawa.

While still waiting to move to the rear area, Southard was wrecked on another reef about 1,000 yards (910 m) southwest of Tsuken Shima on 9 October 1945 during Typhoon Louise.

During the Okinawa campaign, after May 1945, Herman Wouk, author of The Caine Mutiny, served aboard Southard as her executive officer.