Watts is remembered for an action between Planter and a 22-gun French privateer which took place on 10 July 1799 in the eastern Atlantic during the Quasi-War with France.

During that five-hour engagement, Watts and Planter's 43-man crew successfully fought off two concerted attacks by the more heavily armed Frenchman and thwarted the privateers' attempt to take the American ship.

Watts was laid down on 26 March 1943 at Seattle, by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp.; launched on 31 December 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Judith Bundick Gardner; and commissioned on 29 April 1944.

The destroyer remained at San Diego until the 22d, at which time she put to sea in the screen of a Hawaii-bound convoy of troop transports.

She arrived in Pearl Harbor on 29 July and remained only until 3 August when she stood out with Destroyer Division 113 (DesDiv 113) and shaped a course for Aleutian waters.

Since her assignment there came well after America had consolidated her hold on the Aleutians chain, the bulk of Watts' duties consisted of patrols and supply convoy-escort missions between the various outposts scattered across the fog and snow-bound archipelago.

On 14 October, she departed Massacre Bay, Attu, for her first bombardment mission with the cruisers and destroyers of the North Pacific Force.

That one proved successful; and, on the night of 23 and 24 November, her guns joined those of the other warships of the force in pounding airfields and installations on Matsuwa To.

Fortunately, the same storms which buffeted Watts and her sister ships kept enemy air power grounded, and the bombardment group arrived safely back at Attu on 25 November.

From there, Watts and her division mates headed for Hawaii and three weeks of training in preparation for duty in the recently launched Okinawa invasion.

For the remainder of the war, Watts screened the fast carriers of TF 38 while their planes flew their last series of sorties against the Japanese home islands.

Ranging from Hokkaidō in the north to Kyūshū in the south, those planes helped to decimate enemy shipping, land communications, and military and manufacturing installations.

On 23 July, Watts made her own personal contribution to the destruction visited upon the enemy when her guns joined in a bombardment of the outpost island, Chichi Jima, in the Bonins.

After brief stops at Pearl Harbor and San Diego, the destroyer transited the Panama Canal on 7 December and headed for Philadelphia, Pa. on the 18th.

During her more than three years of reserve training cruises, she ranged the length of the western coast of the United States from San Diego, Calif. in the south to the Canada–US border.

Her reserve crew was called to active duty; and, upon completing the overhaul on 8 January 1962, she departed Puget Sound to return to Long Beach.

She completed refresher training out of San Diego on 1 March and departed the west coast for a tour of duty with the 7th Fleet in the Orient.

During that cruise, she participated in at least one training operation, a combined antiaircraft-antisubmarine exercise, and visited Midway, Guam, Hong Kong, and Kobe, Sasebo, and Yokosuka, Japan.