USS Miller, a 2050-ton Fletcher class destroyer, was built at San Francisco, California. Commissioned in at the end of August 1943, she conducted initial training operations along the West Coast and in Hawaiian waters before arriving in the Pacific combat area in January 1944. During the following weeks the new destroyer participated in the invasion of the Marshall Islands, performing escort and gunfire support duties. In late February Miller began service as part of the screen of the fast carrier task forces. In this role she participated in the carriers' March-May raids throughout the central Pacific and on northern New Guinea. In the course of the rest of 1944 she took part in the conquest of the Marianas, including the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June; the assault on the Palaus in September; raids against enemy positions in the western Pacific and on Asian mainland; and the October Battle of Leyte Gulf. On 26 October, during the latter operation, she used her guns to help sink the Japanese Destroyer Nowaki.

Miller remained with the fast carriers for the first half of 1945 as they supported campaigns to capture Luzon, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and raided the Japanese Home Islands. She provided assistance to USS Franklin when that ship was seriously damaged by enemy air attack on 19 March. As the Pacific War approached its conclusion in July and August 1945, Miller was undergoing overhaul at Mare Island, California. Not required in the greatly-reduced postwar active fleet, she was decommissioned in December 1945 and placed in the Pacific Reserve Fleet at San Diego, California.

Increased needs for ships during Korean War and the Cold War brought Miller back into commission in May 1951. She was subsequently modernized, losing one five-inch gun and receiving a new battery of twin three-inch anti-aircraft guns, plus updated electronic equipment. Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, she made one combat deployment in 1952-1953. This cruise, which took her around the World, included naval gunfire support missions against enemy forces in Korea. For most of the rest of the decade Miller operated in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and was in the latter sea with the Sixth Fleet during the 1958 Lebanon crisis. In 1959 she became a Naval Reserve training ship, based at Boston, Massachusetts. After five years in that role Miller was placed out of commission at the end of June 1964. In August 1971, while in "mothballs" as part of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, she was renamed James Miller to free her original name for assignment to the new escort ship DE-1091. USS James Miller had no active service under that name. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in December 1974 and sold for scrapping in July 1975.

USS Miller was named in honor of Quartermaster James Miller, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for courageous conduct during the Civil War.