USS Mugford, a 1500-ton Bagley class destroyer, was built at the Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts. Commissioned in August 1937, she made a shakedown cruise in the Atlantic and Caribbean areas, then was sent to the Pacific where she operated for the rest of her career. The destroyer took part in the regular activities of the U.S. Fleet during the later 1930s and into the early 1940s.

Mugford was moored at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard when the Japanese attacked there on 7 December 1941. She engaged enemy aircraft and put to sea later in the day. During the first months of the Pacific War, she participated in the abortive Wake Island relief expedition and escorted convoys between the U.S. and the south Pacific. In early August 1942, Mugford was part of the invasion force during the Guadalcanal landings. When the Japanese counterattacked with dive bombers on the operation's first day, she was hit by a bomb, with the loss of nearly twenty of her men, but was able to remain in action.

Following repairs, Mugford operated off Australia and New Guinea. In addition to patrol and escort duties, in 1943 she took part in several amphibious invasions, among them Woodlark Island, Lae, Finschafen, Arawe and Cape Gloucester. On 25 December 1943, during the latter operation, she suffered damage and casualties from an enemy air raid. In 1944, Mugford continued her New Guinea area activities until February, when she steamed to the U.S. for overhaul. She then participated in the Saipan invasion and the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 and remained in the Marianas and Marshalls area into August. For much of the rest of 1944, Mugford screened aircraft carrier striking forces during raids in the western Pacific and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On 5 December she was operating near Leyte when a Japanese suicide attack plane hit her amidships, causing serious damage and killing eight crewmen.

Mugford returned to the war zone in March 1945 and spent the rest of World War II patrolling the area between Saipan and Ulithi. She performed occupation duties around Japan in September and October, then steamed eastward across the Pacific to the U.S. in November 1945. During the first half of 1946, she prepared for service as a target during the July atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. These left her contaminated by radioactivity, and Mugford stayed in the Marshall Islands thereafter. She was scuttled off Kwajalein on 22 March 1948.