USS Topeka (CL-67), a light cruiser in service with the United States Navy from 1944 to 1949. From 1957 to 1960, she was converted to a guided missile cruiser and redesignated CLG-8. The cruiser served again from 1960 to 1969 and was finally scrapped in 1975.
Construction and commissioning
She was laid down on 21 April 1943 by the Bethlehem Steel Company yard located at Quincy, Massachusetts, launched on 19 August 1944, sponsored by Mrs. Frank J. Warren, and commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 23 December 1944, Captain Thomas L. Wattles in command.
Service history
1940s
After shakedown in the West Indies and post-shakedown repairs, Topeka departed Boston on 10 April 1945 for duty with the Pacific Fleet. The following day she joined , and steamed via Culebra Island and Guantánamo Bay to the Panama Canal. They transited the canal on 19 April and reported for duty on the 20th. The next day, Topeka and her steaming mate headed for Pearl Harbor, where they arrived on 2 May. Following almost three weeks of gunnery exercises in the Hawaiian Islands, the cruiser sailed west from Pearl Harbor as the flagship of Cruiser Division 18. She entered Ulithi in the Western Carolines on 1 June and, after three days in the anchorage, put to sea with , Oklahoma City, , and to rendezvous with Task Force 38.