Initially stationed at Trepassey Bay from 6 May to 8 May, she later operated at sea from 10 to 17 May, serving as one of the chain of picket ships to provide the NC flying boats with position reports and bearings.

Her next port of call was Annapolis, Maryland, in early June for a two-day visit during Naval Academy graduation exercises, after which Walker headed south and transited the Panama Canal on 24 July.

Based at San Diego, Walker conducted local operations off the United States West Coast into late 1920, when she was assigned to the Reserve Destroyer Flotilla.

She embarked naval reservists for an indoctrination cruise on 27 October 1920 and remained in "rotating reserve" duty, conducting periodic target practices, full-power runs, and undergoing overhauls at the Mare Island Navy Yard.

In the following year, as the Pacific Fleet's base had been moved from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, plans were made to tow DCH-1 (which had been stripped of propulsion machinery during the initial conversion work to YW-57) to the Hawaiian Islands.

In the books, Walker and her sister ship USS Mahan are pursued by superior Japanese naval forces after the Battle of the Java Sea and seek refuge in a squall.