USS Ralph Talbot, a 1500-ton Bagley class destroyer built at the Boston Navy Yard, was commissioned in October 1937. For the next four years she served with the Battle Force, mainly in the Pacific. Based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, after mid-1941, she was moored there when the Japanese attacked on 7 December 1941 and was able to get to sea before the raid was finished. Ralph Talbot spent the next few months operating with carrier task forces, participating in some of the early raids on Japanese bases in the central Pacific.

After serving as an escort for shipping in the west coast and Hawaii areas, in June 1942 Ralph Talbot steamed to the south Pacific. She took part in the Guadalcanal-Tulagi operation in early August and in the Battle of Savo Island on the 9th of that month. She was seriously damaged by gunfire in that action, losing twelve of her crew, and necessitating a return to the U.S. for repairs.

Ralph Talbot's next combat operations were in the central Solomons, where she participated in the Rendova-New Georgia invasion and the Battle of Kolombangara in July 1943. Later in the year, the destroyer supported landings in New Britain and in the first month of 1944 performed similar duties off New Guinea. She was assigned to the central Pacific in mid-1944, where her guns bombarded the enemy on Saipan and Tinian in July. From late August, Ralph Talbot escorted Task Force 38's aircraft carriers during strikes on the Volcano and Bonin Islands, the Palaus, Okinawa, Formosa and the Philippines. In this role, she took part in the action off Cape Enga?o during the Battle of Leyte Gulf on 25 October 1944.

In January-June 1945, Ralph Talbot took part in operations to capture northern Luzon, Iwo Jima and the Ryukyus. She was hit by a "Kamikaze" suicide attack off Okinawa on 27 April but was repaired locally and remained on duty in the central and western Pacific until the end of the Pacific War. At the beginning of September 1945, the destroyer was present when Japanese forces on Truk surrendered.

Following service supporting the occupation of Japan, Ralph Talbot returned to the United States in November 1945. The following spring the now-elderly ship was designated as a target in the upcoming atomic bomb tests at Bikini, in the Marshall Islands. She was contaminated by radioactivity after the two July 1946 nuclear explosions and was decommissioned a month later. USS Ralph Talbot was scuttled in deep water off Kwajalain on 8 March 1948.

USS Ralph Talbot was named in honor of U.S. Marine Corps aviator Second Lieutenant Ralph Talbot (1897-1918), who was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism in aerial action over France and Belgium in October 1918 and died in a plane crash later in that month.