Over the next 10 months, she first conducted shakedown training along the west coast and then began normal duty with the Mine Force out of Long Beach, California.

After stops at Oahu and Midway Island, the coastal minesweeper arrived at Sasebo on 21 August, and reported for duty to the Commander, Mine Flotilla 1.

[2] Her one brush with less than peaceful duty came in the fall of 1958, when the Chinese communists began an artillery bombardment of the Nationalist-held islands of Quemoy and Matsu, located just off the mainland China.

Upon concluding her service in the Taiwan Strait, she resumed her more peaceful employment in training missions with the 7th Fleet and units of Allied navies.

First, as a result of the increasingly direct involvement of American forces in the Vietnam War, ships on "Market Time" station actively participated in stop-and-seizure operations rather than limiting themselves to surveillance and passive assistance to the South Vietnamese Navy.

Most often these missions away from Vietnam consisted of mine warfare exercises, upkeep and liberty calls in Japanese ports, and periodic overhauls.

[2] On 2 May 1975, Whippoorwill moved from San Francisco to the Inactive Ship Facility at Vallejo, California, where she was deactivated completely and placed "out of service" by 30 June 1975.