[10] After World War II Vice Admiral Settle held Navy appointments in the continental United States and overseas, and was charged with tasks ranging from distributing international aid to Greece and Turkey to conducting nuclear tests in the Aleutian islands.

[12] Settle married Fay Brackett, an employee of Cruft Laboratory, in June 1924,[14] and in July assumed his next Navy assignment, that of communications officer on USS Shenandoah (ZR-1), a rigid, 207-meter airship based at Lakehurst Naval Air Station.

[22] On August 25, 1927, when captain Charles E. Rosendahl was on the ground, Settle happened be the senior officer on board Los Angeles when the airship, tied to a mooring mast, literally "stood on its nose".

At 13:29 a sudden cold weather front hit Los Angeles; the resulting increase in the buoyancy of the airship, warmed by sunlight, pushed it upward.

In January 1928 Settle nearly drowned at sea when his J-3 non-rigid airship carrying trainee pilots lost power and was swept into the Atlantic; the crew managed to restart the engines and reach Lakehurst.

[34] Settle became the definitive Navy competitor in national and, when qualified, international gas balloon races: In 1932 the board of the Century of Progress trade show, to be held in Chicago in summer 1933, invited renowned Swiss balloonist Auguste Piccard to perform a high-altitude flight at the fairgrounds.

[8] Century floated at peak altitude for two hours, and landed softly in Bridgeton, New Jersey marshes in the confluence of Delaware and Cohansey rivers,[40] incidentally, a few miles from Jean Piccard's home.

[8] In the second half of 1934 Settle arrived in China, tasked with sailing USS Palos (PG-16) 1,300 miles (2,100 km) up the Yangtze River from Wusong to Chongqing.

[9] Palos, a gunboat stationed around Shanghai since 1914, had recently been refitted and over time became twice as heavy against her original displacement (340 vs. 180 tons), making her hardly capable of the upstream journey.

At Yichang Settle disembarked, leaving the boat and its crew to prepare for forcing the rapids, and himself took a reconnaissance trip to Chongqing on a British steamer.

[43] Balancing engine thrust, steering, and pulling the boat by cables, and struggling to avoid downstream-bound junks, Settle managed to get Palos through the rocky rapids.

[49] After supporting landings in Hollandia, Portland returned to California for dry dock repairs and sailed back to the war zone, via Pearl Harbor, in August, carrying Seabees, infantrymen and reporters (including Joe Rosenthal and John Brennan).

[52][53] In December 1944, Portland provided gunfire support to ground troops in the battle of Mindoro[54] and then sailed to Palau, where Admiral Oldendorf presented Settle with a Navy Cross for his action at Surigao Strait.

[55] Settle's radical shiphandling skills saved Portland from direct kamikaze hits; ship's officers attributed their captain's luck to his former aviator experience.

[56] Settle used to break formation under threat from the air, and at least once his maneuvering earned him a reprimand from a commanding admiral;[57] in another episode, it nearly led to the destruction of a landing craft full of troops.

[58] In February 1945 Portland together with USS Minneapolis (CA-36) and HMAS Shropshire supported ground and airborne forces in the recapture of Corregidor[59] and in March sailed to assist capture of Okinawa.

[64] After his return to the United States Settle served with the 8th Naval District in New Orleans, Louisiana, with the Pacific Fleet in San Diego, California, and in Norway.

[63] In 1950 Rear Admiral Settle was appointed commander of Joint Task Force 131, responsible for carrying out underground nuclear tests on the Aleutian island Amchitka, codenamed Operation Windstorm.