USS YMS-479, a 320-ton auxiliary motor minesweeper, was built at Tacoma, Washington, and commissioned in July 1944. During the rest of World War II, she served along the U.S. West Coast, in Hawaii and in the Central Pacific. Returning to the United States in early 1946, she decommissioned the following August. In February 1947, she was reclassified as a motor minesweeper (AMS) and renamed Waxbill (AMS-39).

Waxbill became a Naval Reserve training ship at Seattle, Washington, in January 1949. After the outbreak of the Korean War in the Summer of 1950, she returned to full commission and was sent to the Far East in February 1951. Over the next four years, Waxbill operated in Japanese and Korean waters, including active Korean War patrol and minesweeping service. She was converted to a coastal minehunter in 1955 and reclassified AMCU-50 (soon changed to MHC-50). In August 1955, she sailed for the U.S., where she spent nearly three more years working off the Pacific Coast. Waxbill decommissioned in June 1958 and was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in November 1959.