USS Waters, a 1090-ton Wickes class destroyer built at Camden, New Jersey, was commissioned in August 1918. During the remaining three months of the First World War she escorted shipping across the Atlantic, making two voyages to England and Ireland and one to the Azores. For the first eight months after the Armistice she mainly operated along the U.S. East Coast, but also returned to the Azores twice, the second time, in May 1919 as part of the plane guard line for the trans-Atlantic flight attempt by the Navy's NC seaplanes. Waters transited the Panama Canal in July to become part of the Pacific Fleet. In addition to taking part in exercises off the West Coast, she briefly operated off Hawaii in 1919, steamed to South America in early 1921, and served in the Far East from mid-1921 until mid-1922. Shortly before the end of 1922 Waters was decommissioned and laid up at San Diego, California.

The destroyer returned to commissioned status in June 1930 and for the next six years was mainly stationed in California ports. She voyaged to Hawaii in 1932 and operated in the Atlantic and Caribbean in April-October 1934. In July 1936 Waters went back to Hawaii for three years, during which she played an active role in the development of anti-submarine sonar techniques. This mission continued in West Coast waters in 1939-1941. After the beginning of the Pacific War in December 1941 she conducted searches for Japanese submarines and escorted shipping, primarily between the "lower 48 states" and Alaska.

In December 1942 Waters began conversion to a high-speed transport, receiving the new hull number APD-8 before the work was finished in February 1943. She was then sent to the south Pacific to take part in combat operations. From June 1943 to April 1944 Waters kept busy participating in, and providing follow-on support for, amphibious operations to capture Rendova, New Georgia, Vella Lavella, the Treasury Islands, Bougainville, the Green Islands and Emirau. She also fought several actions against enemy aircraft and, in July 1943, rescued survivors of the sunken cruiser Helena.

Shifting to the central Pacific, Waters took part in the campaigns to seize Saipan and Tinian in June and July 1944, Iwo Jima in February 1945 and Okinawa in March-May 1945. Redesignated DD-115 in August 1945, she was undergoing overhaul at San Pedro, California, when the war ended. The elderly ship had no place in the post-war fleet and was decommissioned in mid-October 1945. USS Waters was stricken from the Navy list soon afterwards and was sold for scrapping in May 1946.