Stevens was named for two officers, father and son: Captain Thomas Holdup Stevens of the War of 1812, and Rear Admiral Thomas H. Stevens Jr. of the Civil War. Charleston Navy Yard laid her down on 30 December 1941, launched her on 24 June 1942, and commissioned her on 1 February 1943.
She was one of only three Fletchers finished with a catapult and a floatplane, with Pringle (DD-477) and Halford (DD-480). The experiment did not last. The catapult cost a gun and was removed. She then fought as an ordinary destroyer through the Solomons, the central Pacific, and the Philippines, and earned nine battle stars. In late August 1945 she left Subic Bay for the Yellow Sea, screened carriers into Inchon, took the cruiser New Orleans (CA-32) to Tsingtao, and stood by the landings at Taku. She reached San Diego on 7 November and decommissioned on 2 July 1946.
She never recommissioned. Struck in December 1972, she was sold for scrap on 27 November 1973. The cartoonist Sam Glanzman served aboard her and later drew the graphic novels A Sailor's Story from that cruise.