USS Harlan R. Dickson, a 2200-ton Allen M. Sumner class destroyer, was built at Kearny, New Jersey. Commissioned in February 1945, she spent most of the year operating in the Atlantic before arriving at Pearl Harbor in December 1945. Harlan R. Dickson returned to the Atlantic in 1946. Early the next year she began a lengthy series of regular deployments to the Mediterranean Sea, with occasional ventures farther east to the Persian Gulf, punctuated by operations in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean areas. After over two and a half decades of service, USS Harlan R. Dickson was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 1972 and sold for scrapping in June 1973.

USS Harlan R. Dickson was named in honor of Lieutenant Commander Harlan R. Dickson (1914-1944).