CA-32 New Orleans
USS New Orleans, name ship of a class of seven heavy cruisers of approximately 10,000 tons' standard displacement, was built at the New York Navy Yard. Commissioned in February 1934, she cruised to northern Europe in May and June of that year, then moved to the Pacific to conduct operations with the cruiser Houston and airship Macon. For the next two years, New Orleans mainly served in the Atlantic, though she visited the Pacific on occasion and was regularly stationed there after early 1937.
Undergoing overhaul at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard when Japan attacked the Pacific Fleet there on 7 December 1941, New Orleans' crewmen fought back as best they could with hand-operated weapons. She subsquently escorted troopships to other Pacific islands as the U.S. struggled to contain Japan's offensive. In May 1942 she took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea and a month later in the Battle of Midway, in both cases helping to protect U.S. aircraft carriers from enemy air strikes. Back in the south Pacific, she screened USS Saratoga during the early August 1942 invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons later in that month, and while Saratoga was out of the combat area for repairs after she was torpedoed in late August. In the Battle of Tassafaronga, off Guadalcanal at the end of November, New Orleans was severely damaged by a Japanese destroyer torpedo that sliced away her bow between the two forward gun turrets. Saved by her crew's effective damage control work, she received temporary repairs at Tulagi and at Sydney, Australia. In March 1943 she arrived at the Puget Sound Navy Yard for permanent restoration.
The thoroughly repaired New Orleans was back in the war zone by late August 1943. For the rest of the Pacific War, she used her guns in bombardments of Japanese shore positions and as part of the carrier task forces. Her major combat operations in 1943-44 included the invasions of the Gilberts in November 1943, the Marshalls in January and February 1944, New Guinea in April, the Marianas in June and July, the Palaus in September, Leyte in October and Mindoro in December, as well as a host of raids throughout the central and western Pacific.
Following a west coast overhaul, New Orleans took part in the Okinawa Campaign during April-June 1945. Beginning in late August, after the Pacific War fighting had ended, she covered occupation operations in China and Korea. During late 1945 and early 1946, New Orleans transported veterans home from the Asia-Pacific area. She arrived at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in March 1946 to prepare for inactivation and was formally decommissioned in February 1947. USS New Orleans was sold for scrapping in September 1959, after a dozen years in the Reserve Fleet
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