USS Timmerman was constructed as an experimental, light weight, advanced design destroyer to test and evaluate, under operating conditions, advanced design experimental engineering equipment. As a unit of the Operational Development Force, 1st Naval District, Boston, she tested her new propulsion system for the next four years. On 11 January 1954, her designation was changed to AG-152, a miscellaneous auxiliary ship.

The ship was decommissioned at Boston on 27 July 1956. She was moved to Philadelphia in September and assigned to the Reserve Fleet. In early 1958 Timmerman was declared unfit for further service and struck from the Navy list on 4 April 1958. On 21 April 1959, she was sold to the Boston Metals Co., Baltimore, Maryland., and scrapped.