USS Phelps, a 1805-ton Porter class destroyer built at Quincy, Massachusetts, was commissioned in February 1936. She mainly served in the Pacific prior to World War II and remained in that ocean during the first two and a half years of that conflict. Phelps was present in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese began the war with their 7 December 1941 surprise attack. She operated with USS Lexington in the south Pacific early in 1942 and helped to scuttle her after the big aircraft carrier received fatal damage in the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May. A month later, Phelps took part in the Battle of Midway and in August 1942 she screened the carrier Saratoga during the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.

Following a west coast overhaul, Phelps operated in Alaskan waters, participating in the Attu landings in May 1943. She successfully fought off a Japanese aerial counterattack during that time and later shelled Kiska island. In November 1943 and in January-February 1944, the destroyer provided close-in support during the invasions of Makin Island, in the Gilberts, and of Kwajalein, in the Marshalls. She also helped to sink the Japanese submarine RO-40 near Kwajalein in mid-February. Phelps escorted a refueling group during carrier raids in the central Pacific in March and in June used her guns to bombard Saipan when U.S. forces landed there. On 18 June, while so engaged, she was damaged by Japanese coastal artillery, but continued in action against enemy shore positions and landing craft for several more days.

In mid-1944, Phelps was transferred to the Atlantic. After being refitted with new guns and other improvements, she served for the rest of World War II on convoy escort duties between the U.S. and the Mediterranean. USS Phelps was decommissioned in November 1945 and spent a little over a year in the Reserve Fleet. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in January 1947 and in August was sold for scrapping.