CL-4 Omaha
USS Omaha, first of a ten-ship class of 7050-ton light cruisers, was built at Tacoma, Washington. Commissioned in February 1923, she served in both the Atlantic and Pacific areas during the seventeen peacetime years that followed, often as a flagship, and made a cruise to the Mediterranean Sea during the later 1930s. After the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939, Omaha participated in Neutrality Patrols in the Atlantic. While so engaged near the Equator on 6 November 1941, she participated in the capture of the German blockade runner Odenwald, which had disguised herself as the U.S. merchant ship Willmoto.
Once the United States formally entered the Second World War in December 1941 Omaha continued her South Atlantic operations. Based in Brazil with other cruisers and destroyers of what came to be called the Fourth Fleet, she took part in surveys of possible base sites and actively searched for Axis commerce raiders and blocade runners. On 4 and 5 January 1944, while serving as flagship of Task Force 41, Omaha and her companion destroyer, USS Jouett (DD-396), intercepted two German blockade runners, Rio Grande and Burgenland. Both enemy ships were sunk and their survivors rescued.
During August 1944, Omaha participated in the invasion of Southern France, firing her guns against targets ashore in the Toulon area. After the conclusion of that operation she returned to her South Atlantic beat and remained on duty there until Japan capitulated in August 1945. Decommissioned in November 1945, USS Omaha was scrapped at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1946.
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