Today's classic warship, USS Astoria (CL-90)
Cleveland class light cruiser
Displacement 10,000 t.
Lenght 610'1"
Beam 66'4"
Draft 25'
Speed 32.5 k.
Complement 1255
Armament 12 6", 12 5" 28 40mm, 10 20mm, 4 Aircraft
USS Astoria, a 10,000-ton Cleveland class light cruiser, was built at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Commissioned in mid-May 1944, she made a shakedown cruise in the Western Atlantic and, late in September, transited the Panama Canal en route to join the war against Japan. The new cruiser's first combat operation took place in December 1944, when she screened Task Force 38 aircraft carriers during the Mindoro invasion. Astoria continued her carrier escort duties for the next five months, as the fleet raided targets on the Asian mainland, Formosa and in Japan and supported amphibious campaigns against Luzon, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. During March-May 1945 she helped fight off intense enemy air attacks, claiming to have shot down eleven hostile aircraft. Following repairs in the Philippines during June, Astoria rejoined the carriers during their Japan raids of July and August. She also took part in surface anti-shipping sweeps off the enemy coast.
Immediately after Japan's early September surrender Astoria steamed across the Pacific to California. She operated in the West Coast and Hawaiian areas for the next three years and made a cruise in the Central Pacific between October 1946 and February 1947. Her final active service was a Far Eastern cruise that lasted from October 1948 until March 1949. Preparations for inactivation followed, with the ship decommissioning at the beginning of July 1949.
She was part of the Pacific Reserve Fleet for the next two decades, initially at San Francisco and, after 1958, at San Diego. USS Astoria was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in November 1969 and sold for scrapping in January 1971.