Kessing served in Washington until May 1919, when he was ordered to the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation at Quincy, Massachusetts, where he assumed duty in connection with the fitting out of the destroyer USS "Meyer". The "Meyer" was commissioned in December that year and took part in the patrolling off the coast of California and Alaska with cruise to the Caribbean during the disorder in Haiti. Kessing was transferred to the recently commissioned destroyer USS "Reuben James" in November 1920 as Executive officer and took part in the voyage to the Mediterranean with the stops in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia and Le Havre, France.