After a short leave and upkeep period, she spent most of 1955 conducting brief training missions out of Newport for the Atlantic Fleet antisubmarine and destroyer force commands. On 7 January 1956, "Benham" entered the Boston Naval Shipyard for another modernization overhaul. She then spent the summer serving as a school ship at Newport, helping to train prospective commanding officers and engineers. In September, the destroyer entered the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for a two-week availability period. Then, given the growing tensions in the Middle East over the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal, her crew began intensive training exercises out of Newport in preparation for a possible emergency deployment. On 29 October, Israeli forces attacked Egyptian forces in the Sinai, followed two days later by British and French air strikes on British and French paratroopers dropped on Port Said, the start of a larger operation to seize the entire Suez Canal. The next day, however, the Soviet Union declared its intentions to support Egypt in this conflict.