CA-68 Baltimore
USS Baltimore, first of a class of fourteen 13,600 ton heavy cruisers, was built at Quincy, Massachusetts. She commissioned in mid-April 1943 and spent the next several months working up to prepare for combat service in the Pacific Ocean. Her first operation was the November 1943 Gilberts Campaign, in which she used her guns to bombard Japanese forces during the invasion of Makin Atoll. Baltimore next took part in the seizure of Kwajalein and Eniwetok in February 1944, as well as in aircraft carrier raids on enemy bases in the Carolines and the Marianas. Over the next four months, she participated in more strikes on the Carolines, Palaus, Northern New Guinea and Marcus Island, the invasion of Saipan and the June 1944 Battle of the Philippine Sea. In July and August the cruiser transported President Franklin D. Roosevelt from the West Coast to Hawaii for meetings with Pacific area commanders Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and General Douglas MacArthur, and on a subsequent trip to Alaska.
After an overhaul, Baltimore resumed combat operations late in 1944, and from then to the end of the Pacific War supported raids on Luzon, Formosa, the China coast, Okinawa and the Japanese home islands, plus the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Once Japan had surrendered, on 2 September 1945, she took part in occupation duty and helped transport U.S. service personnel home from the former war zone. She left the Western Pacific in February 1946 and was placed out of commission at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington, in July of that year.
Baltimore had been in "mothballs" for about five years when the Korean War and the resulting Cold War emergencies called her back to active service. Recommissioned in late November 1951, she soon joined the Atlantic Fleet. In 1952-1954 she deployed regularly to the Mediterranean Sea and, in June 1953, participated in the Naval Review held at Spithead, England, in honor of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Early in 1955 Baltimore went back to the Pacific for a Far Eastern cruise. She then began deactivation at Bremerton, where she was decommissioned at the end of May 1956. Just under fifteen years later, in February 1971, USS Baltimore was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register. She was sold for scrapping in May 1972.
After fitting out, Baltimore sailed for Hampton Roads on 17 June 1943 and proceeded up the Chesapeake to Annapolis. She reached that port on the 20th for a brief visit to the U.S. Naval Academy before returning to the Virginia capes area two days later for exercises. Following brief upkeep at Norfolk from 24 June to 1 July, the new cruiser cleared Hampton Roads on the latter day and headed toward Trinidad, in the British West Indies, for shakedown. She went through her paces intensive training in gunnery out of Port of Spain, Trinidad. Following her return to Hampton Roads on 24 July, she got underway again on the 28th and arrived at Boston that same day for post shakedown availability and repairs to her leaking main battery hydraulic piping. After this work was completed early in September, she proceeded to Norfolk.
On 21 September 1943, the ship sailed for the west coast in company with the destroyer Sigourney (DD-643). Transiting the Panama Canal on the 25th, the two combatants reached San Diego on 4 October. Baltimore then carried out further gunnery exercises and training off the west coast between 9 and 13 October. After standing out of San Diego Bay on the 16th of that month, she tarried briefly at San Francisco before proceeding independently to Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, where she arrived on the 29th.
Assigned to Task Force (TF) 52, on the last day of October 1943 for training in Hawaiian waters, Baltimore exercised off Oahu until 4 November. She sortied with TF 52 on 10 November, bound for the Gilbert Islands. Baltimore approached Makin Island before dawn on 20 November and, at 0550, catapulted her two Vought OS2U-3 Kingfisher floatplanes for gunnery observation. At 0640, she commenced fire with her 5-inch battery, and her 8-inchers added to the din of bombardment some 40 minutes later. That day, over 1,350 rounds from Baltimore's guns whistled toward the island; but poor visibility prevented accurate spotting by her planes, while indirect fire based on inaccurate navigational fixes meant that some rounds ended up in the sea. While Makin proved to be a comparatively easy conquest, Tarawa, the other objective invaded on the 20th, turned out to be considerably tougher. Baltimore screened the escort carriers operating off Makin through the 24th. The U.S. air umbrella intercepted two low-level fighter sweeps on the 23rd and 24th and largely destroyed both.
When Makin had been secured, Baltimore joined heavy cruisers San Francisco (CA-38), Minneapolis (CA-36), and New Orleans (CA-32) in forming Task Unit (TU) 50.1.1 that screened the carriers of TG 50.1 during a raid on Kwajalein, an atoll in the Marshalls. The photo reconnaissance carried out in this operation proved invaluable for a subsequent raid, and the planes themselves destroyed a large concentration of shipping that the enemy had brought into the area. The U.S. pilots inflicted damage on 12 ships, sinking six of them. However, the light attacks on the airfields at Roi and Wotje in the Marshalls failed to knock out Japanese air power completely enough to prevent a counterattack on the American task force.
Baltimore picked up low-flying planes at 1204 and, moments later, spotted three Kates (Nakajima B5N2 Type 97 carrier attack planes) to starboard, attacking Lexington (CV-16) and other ships. At 1250, Yorktown (CV-10) found herself the object of Japanese attentions, but heavy gunfire from the screening cruisers and destroyers soon knocked down all three attackers. Nevertheless, at 2000, Japanese aircraft commenced moonlight attacks and continued them for the next few hours. Baltimore fired over 1,200 40- and 20-millimeter rounds in the effort to stem the enemy onslaught which, however, succeeded in scoring one torpedo hit on Lexington at 2335.
Baltimore conducted training exercises while returning to Hawaii and arrived at Pearl Harbor on 30 December 1943. After a four-day return to sea for training (2—6 January 1944), the cruiser spent the rest of her time in Hawaii undergoing needed upkeep at Pearl Harbor. Underway on 16 January, she set course for the Marshalls once more.
Assigned to TG 58.4, Baltimore formed part of the screen for Saratoga (CV-3) and the small carriers Princeton (CVL-23) and Cowpens (CVL-25) and conducted exercises en route to the target area. On 29 and 30 January 1944, she supported the carrier strikes against Wotje and Taroa islands, the latter being the center of enemy air strength in the eastern Marshalls. These raids were the last air attack launched to prepare for the invasions of Kwajalein and Majuro. The strikes against Japanese airfields proved to be quite successful, wiping out all enemy air opposition before the landings at the end of January 1944. Baltimore subsequently screened the carriers as their planes blasted targets on Eniwetok on 3 February and, four days later, moored in the newly won Kwajalein lagoon.
As the Fast Carrier Task Forces continued to keep up the relentless pressure on the Japanese in the Central Pacific, Baltimore supported the air strikes that destroyed enemy shipping at Truk on 17 and 18 February 1944. On the 17th, Lt. (j.g.) Denver M. Baxter, A-V(N), USNR, flying one of the heavy cruiser's Vought OS2U-3 Kingfishers with ARMC Reuben F. Hickman on board, covered by two Hellcats, rescued Lt. (j.g.) George M. Blair, A-V(N), USNR, of Fighting Squadron 9 less than 6,000 yards from Dublon Island inside Truk lagoon where he had ditched his flak-crippled Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat.
Returning to Majuro on 26 February, Baltimore replenished there before standing out on 5 March, again with TG 58.4. The group conducted gunnery exercises and training en route to the New Hebrides and reached Espíritu Santo on the 13th. Ten days later, the heavy cruiser sailed for the Palaus as a unit of TG 36.2. On the 29th, as the task force neared those Japanese held islands, she contributed 100 rounds of 5-inch to the barrage put up to discourage attacking Japanese aircraft. The combat air patrol shot down three snoopers while antiaircraft downed at least three during the sporadic attacks.
Baltimore screened the fast carriers while their planes struck targets on the Palaus on the morning of 30 March 1944. Massive sweeps of American fighters knocked down large numbers of enemy fighters on that morning and on the 31st. Seventy-six U.S. Hellcats engaged an estimated 95 Japanese fighters, at a cost of two Americans down in return for 75 Japanese planes destroyed. Further attacks (on Yap, Ulithi and Woleai) followed before Baltimore and her carrier group replenished at Majuro.
Baltimore again sortied with TG 58.2 in mid-April 1944; and, on the 21st, the carriers’ planes, along with those of TG 58.3, pounded airfields at Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea, as well as other nearby targets to prepare the way for the landings at Humboldt Bay and Tanahmerah Bay the following day. TG 58.2 remained in the vicinity through the 23rd, furnishing air support as required, including combat air patrol and antisubmarine patrol over the amphibious forces.
Baltimore continued her vital support role as the massed air groups from 12 carriers struck Japanese shipping, oil and ammunition dumps, aircraft facilities, and other installations at Truk from 29 April to 1 May 1944. Her antiaircraft batteries opened fire on the morning of the 29th, when TG 58.2 brought four attacking torpedo planes under fire. One raider splashed just after crossing the screen; another passed over a carrier without dropping his "fish" only to be destroyed on the far side of the screen; one went down just after releasing its torpedo at Monterey (CVL-24) (which ship took evasive action and avoided it), and the last fell victim to massed gunfire from Yorktown and Monterey just as the point of release.
On 30 April 1944, Baltimore took part in the shelling of Japanese positions at Satawan, contributing over 300 rounds from her 8-inch and 5-inch batteries. The mission assigned to the heavy cruiser and her consorts was "to bombard the air strip and destroy grounded aircraft, facilities, and shipping in order to prevent effective use of [the] field by the enemy in opposing further operations." The following day, 1 May, one of Baltimore's Kingfishers again took center stage, this time by providing gunfire spotting for the battleship North Carolina (BB-55). The heavy cruiser's floatplane filled a gap left by the loss of two of the battleship's own OS2Us in the rescue of downed pilots at Truk.
Having returned to Majuro after the bombardment missions in late April and early May 1944 the heavy cruiser again screened the flattops as they pounded Marcus Island on l9 and 20 May and Wake on the 24th. Upkeep and replenishment at Majuro followed before she returned to sea on 6 June and headed for the Marianas with TG 58.7, screening the fast carriers as their planes rocked Guam and Rota between 11 and 13 June, and Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima between the 15th and 20th. On the latter day, Baltimore recovered a pilot and two crewmen of a plane forced to ditch. The heavy cruiser wound up her service with the screen of the fast carriers during strikes on Pagan Island on 23 June and against Iwo Jima on the 24th.
Recalled to the west coast of the U.S., Baltimore sailed for San Francisco on the latter day [24 June 1944], touched at Eniwetok, in the Marshalls, on the 27th, and at Pearl Harbor on 2 JuIy, before she arrived at Mare Island for a limited availability to ready the ship for service as a Presidential flagship.
Shifting down the coast, Baltimore arrived at San Diego on 18 July and, on the 21st, embarked President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his entourage. She then steamed to Hawaii, embarked Adm. Chester W. Nimitz from a tug slowed off Fort Kamehameha on the 26th, and stood proudly into Pearl Harbor with the Presidential colors at the main, while every ship in the harbor “manned the rail” for this historic visit. In Hawaii, the President and his Chief of Staff, Adm. William D. Leahy, conferred with General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz.
From their discussions emerged the decision to bypass the island of Mindanao in seeking to wrest the Philippines from Japanese hands, capturing Leyte first, and then Luzon. President Roosevelt re-embarked in Baltimore on 29 July 1944 and got underway for Alaskan waters. She carried the Chief Executive to Sweeper Bay, Adak, Chinak Island, and Kodiak, as well as to Pleasant Bay and Ice Passage, where the heavy cruiser transferred her distinguished passenger and his party to the destroyer Cummings (DD-365) on 8 August. Escorted by Woodworth (DD-460), Baltimore headed south and put in at San Francisco on 13 August 1944 for drydocking, repairs, and alterations.
The ship left the west coast on 25 October 1944 and once more headed for Hawaiian waters. Reaching Pearl Harbor on 31 October, she exercised off Oahu with the destroyers Colhoun (DD-801) and Bancroft (DD-598), and a group of motor torpedo [PT] boats, before returning to port on 7 November. Standing out of Hawaiian waters on Armistice Day 1944, the heavy cruiser proceeded via Eniwetok to the Western Carolines and entered Ulithi lagoon soon thereafter.
Baltimore sortied from Ulithi on 10 December 1944 as a unit in the screen of TG 38.1 and protected that group’s fast carriers as they hurled strikes against Japanese positions on Luzon between 14 and 16 December. On the 18th, the American warships encountered a typhoon that damaged both of Baltimore’s planes, destroyed her two motor whaleboats, bent 40- and 20-millimeter gun mounts, and buckled deck plates. Other ships that ran into the same tropical storm proved less fortunate: three destroyers capsized and sank, and a score of the larger ships suffered heavy damage.
Returning to Ulithi for voyage repairs on the day before Christmas 1944, Baltimore got underway on 30 December to resume screening the fast carriers. American warplanes devastated Japanese targets on Formosa on 3 and 4 January 1945 and on Luzon between the 6th and the 9th as the invasion of Lingayen Gulf unfolded. On the latter day, the Fast Carrier Task Force entered the South China Sea through the Bashii Channel and hammered targets at Cam Ranh Bay, French Indochina; on Formosa; and at Canton and Hainan Island, China, before returning to waters off Formosa for more strikes on that island. When enemy planes lashed back at the American formations on 21 January the guns of the task force joined its combat air patrol in downing 12 of 15 attackers. The following day, the carriers conducted air strikes on the southern end of Okinawa before retiring to Ulithi to replenish depleted stores.
As flagship for Rear Adm. Lloyd J. Wiltse, Commander, Cruiser Division 10, Baltimore sailed from Ulithi on 10 February 1945, bound for the Japanese home islands. She supported the carrier strikes against Tokyo on 16 and 17 February and against Iwo Jima between 20 February and 5 March. The heavy cruiser then returned to Ulithi to replenish before resuming her screening duties, this time covering the carriers as their planes struck targets on the Japanese island of Kyushu between 18 and 21 March. Here, Baltimore saw vividly the effectiveness of the Divine Wind or kamikaze, the Japanese name for the suicide planes used to inflict grave losses upon their enemy. American aircraft carriers were priority targets for Japanese pilots; and, in those few days off Kyushu, Japanese planes inflicted damage on six "flattops." Nevertheless, the United States Pacific Fleet pressed on launching strikes relentlessly against targets on the southern tip of Okinawa, as well as on islands in the Sakishima and Amami groups. Between 27 March and 30 April, Baltimore covered for the carrier forces hitting the Ryukyus and the Japanese home islands in support of the Okinawa invasion.
After returning to Ulithi on the 30th, Baltimore was again at sea by mid-May 1945, supporting air attacks on Kyushu and Shikoku on the 13th. Heavy air attacks challenged the Americans the following day. Although Navy guns proved equal to the task, downing 25 of 35 attacking aircraft, some of them still managed to penetrate the screen, with one crashing the veteran carrier Enterprise (CV-6). By 17 May, Baltimore was off the east coast of Okinawa and operated in support of the Allied struggle for that island until 5 June, when she endured the fury of a second typhoon, which destroyed her planes and damaged her bow.
Undaunted, Baltimore remained on the "front lines" off Okinawa until the 11th when she sailed for the Philippines. Arriving at Leyte Gulf two days later, the heavy cruiser soon sailed for Hawaii and, proceeding via Eniwetok, reached Pearl Harbor on 12 July 1945. She remained in Hawaiian waters through V-J Day, 15 August 1945, undergoing a navy yard availability and carrying out training through the end of August. During this time, she and the escort vessel Stewart (DE-238) conducted tests off Oahu with Kingfisher floatplanes equipped with Jet Assisted Take Off (JATO) equipment.
In the first few weeks after the war, Baltimore conducted three Magic Carpet voyages bringing home returning servicemen, plying the Pacific between Pearl Harbor and the west coast, calling at San Francisco twice and San Pedro once. Navy Day 1945, 27 October, found her at San Pedro, Calif. Then, on 10 November, the cruiser, with Rear Adm. Emmet P. Forrestel embarked, sailed for Japan. She arrived at Tokyo on 24 November but soon proceeded to Kure where she arrived on the 27th. The cruiser remained there through the end of the year. In early February 1946, Baltimore visited Wakayama, Matsumaya, Sasebo, and Nagasaki before departing Japanese waters on 18 February, bound for home.
She arrived in San Francisco on 3 March 1946. Later, Baltimore moved to Seattle, Wash., where her status was reduced to “in commission, in reserve” on 8 July. Finally, the warship was decommissioned at Bremerton, Wash., on 29 April 1947.
With the expansion of the Navy to meet the challenge imposed by the Korean War, Baltimore was recommissioned at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, on 28 November 1951, Capt. Fondville L. Tedder in command. Departing Bremerton on 9 January 1952, she touched at San Francisco from 9 to 11 January and at San Diego from the 12th to the 17th before sailing for Panama. Transiting the canal on 25 and 26 January, the heavy cruiser reached Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on 28 January. After conducting shakedown training in the West Indies, she sailed north to her newly assigned home port, Boston, for post shakedown availability and preparation for her first deployment to European waters.
Departing Boston on 22 April 1952, the warship reached Gibraltar on 3 May for a wee’'s visit before commencing operations with the Sixth Fleet. For the next five months, she ranged the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to IstanbuI, showing the flag at such ports as Cagliari and Augusta, Sicily; Naples, Taranto, Trieste, and Venice on the Italian “boot,” Cannes, Golfe Juan, Marseille and TouIon, France; and the island of Rhodes. Relieved at Lisbon, Portugal, by her sister ship Columbus (CA-74) in late October, Baltimore sailed for Boston.
Operations off the eastern seaboard, between Hampton Roads and Boston, interspersed with a port visit to Baltimore and a stint of training in the West Indies occupied her time for the next few months. Baltimore returned to the Mediterranean the following spring, making port at Gibraltar on 6 May 1953. After visiting Cagliari, Marseille, and Golfe Juan, she sailed for Portland, England. Arriving there on 8 June, she represented the Navy at Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation Review off Spithead. Leaving the British Isles on 10 June, the warship then returned to the Mediterranean, resuming her rigorous schedule of operations with the 6th Fleet. Baltimore departed Palermo, Sicily, on 12 October; arrived at Boston on 23 October 1953; and remained there until sailing for Guantanamo Bay and refresher training on 3 March 1954. She operated in the West Indies into the spring, visiting Port au Prince, Haiti, and Culebra before heading home. During the voyage north, she visited again the city for which she had been named between 17 and 19 April.
After preparing for her third Mediterranean deployment, Baltimore departed Boston on 4 May 1954 and arrived at Gibraltar on the 18th. Her ports of call on this deployment included cities new to her such as Barcelona and Oran. Late in the summer, the heavy cruiser left Mediterranean for visits to Southend, England, and to several Scandanavian ports: Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Oslo. After touching briefly at Portsmouth, England, from 9 to 11 September on her homeward voyage, the ship arrived at Boston on 18 September.
On 2 July 1950, light cruiser Juneau (CL-119) and two Allied ships sank three of four North Korean PT-boats and two of two motor gunboats in the Battle of Chumonchin Chan. This was the first and last surface engagement between the U.S. and North Korean navies, as it convinced the North Koreans to never try that again (at least until the Pueblo—AGER-2—incident in 1968).
The British light cruiser HMS Jamaica (four triple 6-inch gun turrets) and the sloop (frigate) HMS Black Swan (three twin 4-inch gun turrets) were transiting from Hong Kong to Japan when the North Korean invasion commenced. The two ships were ordered to join up with Rear Admiral Higgins and Juneau in the Sea of Japan. (Jamaica was a veteran ship that had put torpedoes into the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst off Norway’s North Cape in December 1943. The torpedoes had finished off the German ship after it had been pummeled by gunfire from both Jamaica and the battleship HMS Duke Of York.) Black Swan had completed repairs to her superstructure after being hit by Communist Chinese gunfire on the Yangtze River in the midst of the Chinese Civil War in April 1949. She had suffered seven wounded while attempting unsuccessfully to go to the rescue of her sister ship, HMS Amethyst, which had run aground in the river and was being hit by Communist artillery. (Amethyst escaped in July after suffering 22 killed and 31 wounded. The other ships in the rescue force were hit worse than Black Swan. Heavy cruiser HMS London suffered 15 dead and 13 wounded, and destroyer HMS Consort suffered 10 killed and 23 wounded).
On 2 June 1950, Juneau, Jamaica, and Black Swan were operating off the east coast of South Korea, not far south of the 38th Parallel, preparing to bombard NKPA ground forces moving south. At 0615, Black Swan sighted a North Korean convoy that had delivered ammunition and was already heading north. The convoy consisted of 10 motor trawlers used to transport ammunition, escorted by four torpedo boats and two motor gunboats.
As the UN force closed to engage, the North Korean PT-boats turned to attack and charged. The cruisers opened fire at 11,000 yards and, by the time the range closed to 4,000 yards, PT No. 24 was already sunk, PT No. 22 was dead in the water, PT No. 23 was trying to reach the beach, and PT No. 21 was fleeing northward. When the engagement was over, three of the four PT-boats and both motor gunboats had been sunk. Jamaica took two North Koreans prisoner. The UN force suffered no casualties. North Korean casualties are unknown, but included most of the crews of the five sunken boats. The 10 ammunition trawlers escaped, but were later hunted down and destroyed by Juneau some days later. North Korean propaganda claimed that their heroic PT-boats sank the heavy cruiser Baltimore (CA-68). At the time, Baltimore was decommissioned in reserve at Bremerton, and wasn’t re-commissioned until November 1951.
The “Battle of Chumonchin Chan” would be the first, and last, surface engagement between U.S. ships and North Korean navy vessels, as the North Koreans deemed it inadvisable to challenge UN supremacy at sea again. What remained of the North Korean navy would ultimately seek refuge in Soviet and Chinese ports. However, there would be multiple surface actions between ROKN forces (which were beefed up with the provision of three more submarine chasers in mid-July) and North Korean small craft attempting to infiltrate ammunition, supplies, and troops behind UN lines.
The USS Baltimore (CA-68) was never deployed to the Korean War. However, the Victorious War Museum in Pyongyang, North Korea, claims that the Korean People's Navy sank the Baltimore on July 2, 1950. The museum has exhibits that include a poster and the boat that supposedly sank the American cruiser. The museum claims that four torpedo boats attacked and sank the cruiser. One of the boats is preserved in the museum. The North Korean naval leader who led the operation that supposedly sank the USS Baltimore was named Hero Kim Kun Ok. A submarine was named after him.
That deployment to the Sixth Fleet proved to be her last. Reassigned to the Pacific Fleet, the heavy cruiser departed Boston on 5 January 1955; exercised in the Guantánamo Bay area en route; transited the Panama Canal between 16 and 18 January; and, after a stop at Long Beach from 26 January to 8 February, reached her new home port, Pearl Harbor, on Valentine's Day.
She remained there a week before sailing for the Far East on the 21st. Stopping at Midway en route, Baltimore arrived at Yokosuka on 4 March. Deployed to the Seventh Fleet, the heavy cruiser ranged the Far East from Hong Kong to Sasebo, and from Manila Bay to Okinawa and Yokosuka. She also included Sokcho Ri, Korea, Nagasaki, and Kobe in her itinerary, while mixing underway training and TF 77 operations with calls at those and the aforementioned seaports, into the summer of 1955. Clearing Yokosuka on 6 August and steaming via Hawaiian waters, Baltimore reached Long Beach on 22 August. Proceeding to San Francisco and Bremerton, the heavy cruiser arrived at the latter port for inactivation on 29 January 1956.
Placed in commission, in reserve, on the day of her arrival, Baltimore rejoined the Bremerton Group of the Pacific Reserve Fleet and was decommissioned on the last day of May 1956. A third call to duty never came. The cost of activating, repairing, and modernizing the ship was deemed to be disproportionate to her value.
Baltimore remained in reserve for almost a quarter of a century. Her name was struck from the Navy List on 15 February 1971, and she was sold to Zidell Explorations, Inc., of Portland, Oregon, on 10 April 1972 for scrapping and was released from naval custody on 13 July of the same year.
Baltimore (CA-68) received nine battle stars for her World War II service.
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