USS Gillette (DE-681)

USS Gillette (DE-681) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy in service from 1943 to 1947. She was finally scrapped in 1973.

Namesake
Douglas Wiley Gillette was born on 10 September 1918 in Wilmington, North Carolina. He enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve on 5 March 1936. After serving at Naval Station Norfolk, on the USS McDongal (DD-358) and after studying at the United States Naval Academy and Northwestern University, he was commissioned Ensign on 12 September 1941. Ordered to active duty on the carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) on 17 November 1941, he was appointed Lieutenant (junior grade) (temporary). He was killed in action in the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands on 26 October 1942.

History
The ship launched on 25 September 1943 by the Bethlehem Steel Co.'s Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts; sponsored by Mrs. Pearl M. Gillette, the namesake's mother; and commissioned on 27 October 1943.

Battle of the Atlantic
After shakedown off Bermuda, Gillette sailed from Boston on 2 January 1944 for Balboa, C.Z., where for four months she conducted intensive exercises with submarines and escorted a convoy to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and returned. She sailed 9 May for Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, on a good-will tour and visited Barranquilla, Colombia, as well before returning to Boston 2 June.

From 4 July 1944 to 18 February 1945, Gillette made four round trip transatlantic escort voyages – three out of Hampton Roads and one from New York – to Oran and United Kingdom ports protecting Allied shipping. She subsequently served as a submarine training ship at New London, Connecticut, until 14 April 1945.

Pacific War
On 14 April 1945, she sailed for Hollandia via Borabora and Manus, and escorted a convoy thence to Manila, where she put in 17 June. Patrol and escort duties in the Philippines and to Ulithi occupied the busy ship until 6 August, when she sailed for Okinawa and returned as convoy escort to Subic Bay on 17 August. Following a round trip escort voyage from Subic Bay to Tokyo and return, Gillette continued patrol and logistics duties in the Philippines until departing Subic Bay on 26 November for San Diego, Calif., where she moored on 17 December 1945.

Gillette remained at San Diego until decommissioned there 3 February 1947 and placed in reserve with the Pacific group at San Diego.

Fate
Gillette was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 December 1972, sold on for scrapping on 11 September 1973.