USS Monssen was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet Destroyer Squadrons after her shakedown trials. She almost immediately left for the Pacific with task force 17, screening the carrier Hornet when Lieut. Colonel James DooLittle and his 16 B-25 bombers set off for Tokyo on the famous DooLittle Raid.

In November 1942 USS Monssen joins Task Group 67.4 and was hit by a bomb that damaged her fire control radar. USS Monssen (Lt.Cdr. Charles Edward McCombs, USN) fired 5-inch shells and fired 5 torpedoes at the Japanese battleship Hiei. She was also damaged herself, being quickly reduced by fire to a mass of wreckage and lay dead in the water. Many of the crew abandoned ship, watching the fires detonate the ammunition onboard Monssen. The heat finally reached her magazines and she blew up and sank, 145 of her crew were killed and 97 were wounded which includes the commanding officer.