Based at San Diego, Lamberton operated along the United States West Coast from August 1919 until June 1922. She participated in training maneuvers and performed experiments to improve naval tactics. She was decommissioned at San Diego on 30 June 1922.
Lamberton recommissioned on 15 November 1930, Lieutenant Commander S. N. Moore in command. Operating along the U.S. West Coast, she performed training exercises for nearly two years. She was reclassified as a "miscellaneous auxiliary," AG-21, on 16 April 1932 and was converted to a target-towing ship. From 1933 until 1940 she operated from San Diego towing targets for surface ships, submarines, and aircraft. She also engaged in experimental minesweepingexercises off the U.S. West Coast and was reclassified as a "destroyer minesweeper", DMS-2, on 19 November 1940. The actor Ernest Borgnine served aboard Lamberton until his discharge from the Navy in September 1941.[1][note 1] After arriving at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, on 11 September 1941, Lamberton resumed target towing and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) screening operations in the Hawaiian Islands.
Departing Pearl Harbor on 11 July 1942, Lamberton steamed north, arriving at Kodiak on Kodiak Island in the Territory of Alaska on 18 July 1942. She performed patrol and escort duty in the North Pacific Ocean during the Aleutian Islands campaign. In mid-May 1943, she escorted the U.S. Navy task group which brought reinforcements for the second amphibious landing at Massacre Bay on Attu Island during the Battle of Attu. Lamberton continued patrol operations off Attu until late June 1943, when she departed for Kuluk Bay on Adak Island. She then steamed to San Diego, arriving there on 23 July 1943. For the rest of World War II, she performed target-towing operations off the U.S. West Coast and from Pearl Harbor. Lamberton was reclassified as a miscellaneous auxiliary and again redesignated AG-21 on 5 June 1945, and, following the Japanese surrender that ended the war in August 1945, she operated as an auxiliary ship based at San Diego.
On 9 October 1945 Lamberton was one of 266 vessels damaged by Typhoon Louise when it struck Okinawa, and was one of 222 ships that ran aground during the typhoon.[note 2] She later was refloated and returned to duty.
Wise Jr., James E.; Rehill, Anne Collier (1997). Stars in Blue: Movie Actors in America's Sea Services. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN978-1-55750-937-6.
