The three destroyers escorted the battleship as she carried president Franklin D. Roosevelt back to the United States from talks with other Allied leaders at the Cairo Conference.

Soon after her return from this special escort duty, Wadleigh got underway from Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 3 January 1944 and steamed via Panama to Pearl Harbor.

Assigned shore-bombardment duties, Wadleigh—in company with McCalla and Sage —supported LCIs and LSTs during the landings on Ailinglapalap and expended 478 rounds of 5 inch shells which destroyed an enemy-held village.

The day before the first landings, the warship closed Saipan and commenced fire early in the morning, beginning her part in the operations designed to "soften up" the enemy defenses.

On D-Day, Wadleigh lay offshore, providing predawn gunfire support for underwater demolition teams (UDTs) and for the initial waves of troops.

Assigned to bombard Garapan, the capital city of Saipan, Wadleigh encountered heavy activity of all types in this area, from both friend and foe alike, while expending some 1,700 rounds of 5 inch shells against the Japanese-held island.

On 15 September, she patrolled north of the islands on radar picket duty, standing ready to provide early warning if Japanese planes were sighted.

Wadleigh, now sporting a 40-foot rend in her bottom, came to an even keel as the crew manhandled all movable weight from starboard to port to correct the list.

On 10 July, the ship embarked a party of dignitaries—including Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, John L. Sullivan, and Vice Admiral Aubrey W. Fitch, for transportation to Iwo Jima.

Ordered to proceed directly to Sagami Wan, Wadleigh went to general quarters in company with Benevolence as the ships passed beneath the once-menacing shore batteries along the Urage Strait.

Back at sea with the carriers once more, Wadleigh patrolled off the Japanese coast for two weeks, before she departed Nipponese waters on 16 September and proceeded via Eniwetok to Saipan in company with Bennington and Lexington for air group replacements.

Departing Japanese waters on 20 October, bound for the Hawaiian Islands, Wadleigh carried a load of men eligible for discharge upon their return to the United States.

She transited the Panama Canal on 14 January—in company with Hazelwood, Heermann, Cassin Young, and Cowell—and, upon arrival at her new home port of Newport, Rhode Island, became flagship for Destroyer Division 342.

On 3 May 1954, Wadleigh departed Newport, bound via the Panama Canal, Pearl Harbor, Midway, and Guam for the Western Pacific (WestPac), and arrived at Yokosuka, Japan, on 7 June 1954.

After initially operating in the Philippine Islands, the destroyer shifted to the waters off the east coast of Korea, assisting in monitoring the Armistice Agreement reached at Panmunjom the year before.

While homeward-bound to Newport in September of that year, she served as one of the chain of ships beneath the aerial route of president Dwight D. Eisenhower's return to the United States after his summit conferences in Europe.

She then conducted ASW exercises out of Mayport, Florida, and practiced recovery techniques for participation in Project Mercury, the first American manned spaceflight program.

A second participation by Wadleigh in the Project Mercury program came in August of that year, but unfavorable weather "scrubbed" the launch, and the destroyer was detached to return to Newport.

Blanco Encalada was decommissioned and stricken in 1982, and on 28 September 1991 was sunk off southern Chile by a Harpoon missile launched from the Spruance-class destroyer USS O'Bannon during an Operation Unitas XXXII exercise.