CL-7 Raleigh
USS Raleigh, a 7,050-ton Omaha class light cruiser, was built at Quincy, Massachusetts. Commissioned in February 1924, she made a maiden cruise to Northern Europe in mid-year. After four years of operations with the Scouting Fleet in the Atlantic, Pacific and Caribbean, Raleigh returned to European waters in September 1928 for a year-long tour as the U.S. Navy's flagship there. Further Scouting Force service in 1929-36 followed, with the ship shifting her base to San Diego, California, in 1933. In 1936-38, Raleigh was flagship of Squadron 40-T, which operated off Spain during that nation's bloody civil war. She spent the rest of the 1930s and the early 1940s off the U.S. and in the Hawaiian area, taking an active part in the U.S. Fleet's exercises.
On 7 December 1941, Raleigh was moored at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese Navy raided that fleet base. She was badly damaged when hit by a torpedo and near-missed by a bomb. Repaired at the Pearl Harbor and Mare Island Navy Yards, the cruiser was again ready for service in mid-1942. Raleigh operated in the south and central Pacific for most of the rest of that year, then was sent to the Aleutians, where she was employed until June 1945. Her activities there included convoy escort, patrols in contested waters and bombardment of Japanese-held islands. Sent back to the Atlantic during the Summer of 1945, Raleigh briefly helped to train Naval Academy midshipmen. She was decommissioned in November 1945 and sold for scrapping in February 1946.
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