Miller was named for Quartermaster James Miller, who won the Medal of Honor aboard the gunboat Marblehead in the Civil War for sounding under fire. Bethlehem at San Francisco laid her down on 18 August 1942, launched her on 15 February 1943, and commissioned her on 31 August under Commander T. H. Kolberg.
She joined the fast carriers in 1944. On 19 June, at the opening of the Philippine Sea battle, she was on the starboard quarter of the carrier Bunker Hill (CV-17) and spent both days in that screen, splashing one plane and damaging another. She covered the Palaus in September. At Leyte Gulf on 26 October her guns, with those of the destroyer Owen (DD-536), finished the Japanese destroyer Nowaki, the last survivor of Kurita's force, caught alone after the battle. She stayed with the carriers through Luzon, Iwo Jima, and the first Okinawa strikes. On 19 March 1945 she was near Franklin (CV-13) when a dive bomber put several bombs into that carrier, and she stood by the burning ship. She reached Mare Island on 9 July and was still in the yard when the war ended.
She decommissioned at San Diego on 19 December 1945, recommissioned on 19 May 1951 for the Atlantic Fleet, and deployed to Korea in the fall of 1952 for gunfire and carrier-screen duty. The Navy later renamed her James Miller. She was sold for scrap on 31 July 1975.