USS Vesole (DD-878)

USS Vesole (DD-878) was a Gearing-class destroyer of the United States Navy. She was named for Ensign Kay K. Vesole USN (1913–1943), killed in action during an air raid at Bari, Italy on 2 December 1943, and posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.

Vesole laid down by the Consolidated Steel Corporation at Orange, Texas on 3 July 1944, launched on 29 December 1944 by Mrs. Kay K. Vesole and commissioned on 23 April 1945.

Vesole alternated operations along the United States East Coast and in the Caribbean with the United States 2nd Fleet with deployments to the Mediterranean with the 6th Fleet, participated in blockade operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, underwent an extensive Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) overhaul at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1964, and during the Vietnam War served as plane guard for aircraft carriers on Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf, participated in Operation Sea Dragon and Operation Market Time, patrolled on search and rescue duties, and carried out naval gunfire support missions.

Vesole made a cruise in northern European waters from January to June 1969 as a participant in Standing Naval Force Atlantic (STANAVFORLANT), a NATO multinational squadron under a Dutch Commodore and Canadian Chief of Staff. During this cruise, Vesole made port calls at Den Helder, the Netherlands; Portland, Portsmouth, and London, England; Trondheim, Norway; Lisbon, Portugal; Funchal on Portugal's Madeira Island; Bermuda; and others. The STANAVFORLANT squadron incorporated American, Norwegian, Dutch, and British ships, as well as West German and Portuguese ships for a period.

Vesole was decommissioned at Charleston, South Carolina, and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 December 1976 and sunk as a target off Puerto Rico on 14 April 1983.