Assigned to battleship USS Utah just before it departed for European duty, Abele attained the rank of apprentice seaman while training at Newport, Rhode Island.

Detached from Utah in December 1921, Abele received orders to take entrance examinations to the United States Naval Academy.

Completing the course several months later, he received assignment to USS S-23, a unit of Submarine Division 4, serving on board as engineering officer until April 1933.

Receiving orders for shore duty to the Bureau of Navigation, Navy Department, until 30 May 1936, he was promoted to lieutenant on 30 June 1936.

Grunion reported an attack on unidentified enemy ships 6 miles (9.7 km) south off Sirius Point, Kiska, on 28 July.

After shakedown off Bermuda, Mannert L. Abele served as a training ship for destroyer crews in Chesapeake Bay before departing Norfolk, Virginia, on 16 October for duty in the Pacific.

She sailed in convoy for the western Pacific on 3 December, but returned two weeks later for conversion to a fighter director ship.

She reached the Ryukyus on 24 March, and during the next week she screened heavy shore bombardment ships during preinvasion operations from Kerama Retto to Ie Shima.

In addition, she pounded enemy positions and supported UDT operations at proposed assault beaches on Okinawa.

As American troops stormed the beaches on 1 April, Mannert L. Abele provided close fire support before beginning radar picket patrols northeast of Okinawa later that day.

The next day, Mannert L. Abele regrouped with TF 54 to protect the transports off Okinawa from ships of the Surface Special Attack Force, including the Japanese battleship Yamato, steaming south from Japan in a final effort to destroy American seapower.

However, planes of the Fast Carrier Task Force wiped out the enemy’s thrust with bomb and torpedo strikes, sinking six Japanese ships and damaging the four surviving destroyers.

Despite numerous hits from 5‑inch and light anti-aircraft fire, and spewing smoke and flame, the third kamikaze crashed into the starboard side and penetrated the aft engine room where it exploded.

A minute later, at about 14:46, Mannert L. Abele took a second and fatal hit from a Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka kamikaze rocket powered flying bomb that struck the starboard waterline abreast the forward fireroom.

[6] The wreck of the Mannert L. Abele was located about 75 miles (121 km) off the northern coast of Okinawa in December 2022 by the Lost 52 Project.