USS Tuscaloosa (CL/CA-37) was a of the U.S. Navy. Commissioned in 1934, she spent most of her career in the Atlantic and Caribbean, participating in several European wartime operations. In early 1945, she transferred to the Pacific and assisted in shore bombardment of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. She earned 7 battle stars for her service in World War II. Never damaged in battle, the ship fared better compared to her six sister ships, three of which were sunk and the other three heavily damaged.

Tuscaloosa was decommissioned in early 1946 and scrapped in 1959.

Construction and commissioning

The keel was laid down on 3 September 1931 at Camden, New Jersey, by the New York Shipbuilding Co., and the hull was launched on 15 November 1933, sponsored by Mrs. Jeanette McCann, the wife of Lieutenant Thomas L. McCann and the niece of William Bacon Oliver, the Representative of Alabama's 6th congressional district). She was commissioned on 17 August 1934, Captain John N. Ferguson in command.

The New Orleans-class cruisers were the last U.S. cruisers built to the specifications and standards of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. Such ships, with a limit of 10,000 tons standard displacement and 8-inch caliber main guns may be referred to as "treaty cruisers." Originally classified a light cruiser before she was laid down, because of her thin armor, she was reclassified a heavy cruiser, because of her 8-inch guns. The term "heavy cruiser" was not defined until the London Naval Treaty in 1930.

Inter-war period

Tuscaloosa devoted the autumn to a shakedown cruise which took her to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo, before she returned to the New York Navy Yard shortly before Christmas. She then underwent post-shakedown repairs which kept her in the yard into March 1935.

The heavy cruiser soon shaped a course for the west coast. After a stop at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, she transited the Panama Canal on 7–8 April and then steamed north to San Diego, where she joined Cruiser Division 6 (CruDiv 6) in time to participate in Fleet Problem XVI staged in May in the northern Pacific off the coast of Alaska and in waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. This operation was divided into five distinct phases which might be aspects of some real naval campaign of the future in which the United States would take the strategic offensive.

thumb|left|Tuscaloosa under way in 1935.

Tuscaloosa subsequently was based at San Pedro, California, whence she conducted routine exercises and local operations with CruDiv 6. In the spring of 1936, the heavy cruiser participated in Fleet Problem XVII, taking place off the west coast of the United States, Central America, and the Panama Canal Zone. The five phase exercise was devoted to preparing the fleet for antisubmarine operations, testing communications systems, and training of aircraft patrol squadrons for extended fleet operations.

In May 1937, the Fleet again exercised in Alaskan waters and in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands and Midway, practicing the tactics of seizing advanced base sites - a technique later to be polished to a high degree into close support and amphibious warfare doctrines. Tuscaloosa, as part of the "augmented" Scouting Force, "battled" the Battle Force that spring.

In April and May 1938, the heavy cruiser participated in Fleet Problem XIX, which was conducted in the vicinity of Hawaii.

Tuscaloosa departed San Diego on 3 January 1939 and proceeded, via the Panama Canal, to the Caribbean. She took part in Fleet Problem XX, in the Atlantic to the east of the Lesser Antilles, before undergoing a brief refit at the Norfolk Navy Yard. She then joined and for a goodwill tour of South American ports. From 8 April to 10 May, the division—under the command of Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel—visited Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires before transiting the storm-tossed Strait of Magellan. The three cruisers drove their bows deep into heavy seas and battled gale-force winds as they made the difficult passage on 14–15 May. The division then sailed up the west coast of South America, visiting Valparaíso, Chile, and Callao, Peru, before transiting the Panama Canal and returning to Norfolk, where she arrived on 6 June.

Tuscaloosa remained off the east coast into the summer of 1939. In August, she carried President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Campobello Island, New Brunswick. En route, off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the Commander in Chief witnessed salvage operations in progress on the sunken which had stayed down after a test dive on 24 May. On 24 August, following visits to Campobello and several ports in Newfoundland, President Roosevelt disembarked at Sandy Hook on the coast of New Jersey.

Before Pearl Harbor

September 1939 – November 1939

The outbreak of World War II a week later (1 September 1939) found Tuscaloosa at NOB Norfolk. On the 5th, President Roosevelt established the Neutrality Patrol; and, the next day, the cruiser departed for her first patrol, which kept her at sea until she returned to her home port on the 11th. Three days later, the heavy cruiser departed Norfolk and spent the remainder of September and most of October engaged in gunnery training and conducting exercises out of Guantanamo Bay and San Juan, Puerto Rico. She departed the Caribbean on 27 October, bound for Hampton Roads, and arrived at Norfolk on 5 November and, but for gunnery exercises off the Virginia Capes from 13 to 15 November, remained in the Hampton Roads areas until mid-December.

Meanwhile, the Neutrality Patrol found itself keeping track of German merchantmen in waters of the western hemisphere. At the outbreak of hostilities, there had been some 85 German ships near the Americas. One of those, the North German (Norddeutsche) Lloyd (NDL) liner —the 13th largest steamship in the world—had been on a tourist cruise when war caught her in the West Indies. She put into Veracruz, Mexico, where she fueled and prepared to make a break for home.

December 1939

The liner departed Veracruz on 14 December 1939 but soon thereafter was escorted by seven destroyers, including the . Captain Willibald Dahne, the master of the Columbus, was careful to keep his ship within the neutrality zone until she was abreast of the Delaware capes. He then headed east. The Tuscaloosa, meanwhile, had been ordered out to participate. On 16 December, two days after Columbus departed Veracruz, Tuscaloosa stood out of Norfolk, bound for her patrol station. She soon relieved and —two flushdeckers— at 0600 on 18 December. On 19 December, the liner spotted the British destroyer , who sent a warning shot and then a flash signal, "You are captured."

For Captain Dahne, there remained only one alternative. After having carefully planned for that eventuality, he scuttled his ship. All but two of his crew of 578 succeeded in going over the side and manning the lifeboats. The Hyperion clearly had no room for all of the Germans. The Tuscaloosa radioed the Hyperion, "Our orders, either you take all or none. We are warning, stay away from the boats. If you ram or sink one, we will have to commence firing at you."

On 6 January 1942, Tuscaloosa steamed out of Hvalfjörður along with Wichita and two American destroyers— and —for a training mission through the Denmark Strait. After returning to port three days later, the heavy cruiser moved on to Boston for a navy yard overhaul from 8–20 February. She conducted refresher training out of Casco Bay and then underwent another brief refit at New York Harbor before joining Task Group 39.1 (TG 39.1), under the command of Rear Admiral John W. Wilcox, Jr., whose flag flew from the new battleship .

thumb|Tuscaloosa (foreground) anchored at Scapa Flow in April 1942.

TG 39.1 sortied from Casco Bay and then it struggled through the gale-whipped seas of the North Atlantic Ocean, bound for Scapa Flow, Scotland, in the Orkney Islands—the main base for the British Home Fleet. On 27 March, Rear Admiral Wilcox apparently suffered a coronary and then was washed overboard from Washington. (Some have speculated that the admiral might have jumped overboard to commit suicide, but there was no prior evidence at all that this might happen.) The heavy seas ruled out rescue attempts, and the task group's commanding officer soon disappeared in the stormy Atlantic. With Admiral Wilcox's death, Rear Admiral Giffen, whose two-starred flag flew from Wichita, assumed command of TG 39.1.

Tuscaloosa arrived at Scapa Flow on 4 April and she immediately took on board a British signals and liaison team. She was initially employed with the British Home Fleet on training duties and later took part in covering runs for convoys to northern Russia.

June 1942 – October 1942

At that period, Anglo-American naval operations frequently were mounted in an attempt to lure Tirpitz out of her snowy Norwegian lair. One such attempt, Convoy PQ 17, resulted in disaster in June 1942. The following two months found Tuscaloosa still active in convoy covering and escorting assignments.

In mid-August, Tuscaloosa received orders to carry supplies—including aircraft torpedoes, army ammunition, and medical equipment—to Northern Russia, via the Arctic Ocean. Soon after she and two destroyers set out on the mission, a member of the cruiser's crew developed symptoms of spinal meningitis. The sick man was quickly put ashore at Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, and the group got underway again on 19 August, bound for Kola Inlet.

On the next day, Tuscaloosa and her screening warships—which by that time consisted of three destroyers (two American and one British)—were spotted by a snooping German reconnaissance plane. The task force changed course and, assisted by the worsening visibility in the northern latitudes, managed to shake the intruder. On the evening of 22 August, two more British destroyers joined Tuscaloosas screen; and, the following day, a Russian escort guided them to Kola Inlet.

All hands turned-to and unloaded the valuable cargo. The cruiser then took on fuel; prepared to get underway; and, just before departure, embarked 243 passengers, most of whom were survivors of ships which had been sunk while serving in earlier convoys to Russia. Many of them had endured the special tribulation and agony of the PQ 17. With her human cargo thus on board, Tuscaloosa cleared Kola Inlet on 24 August and then she reached Seyðisfjörður on the 28th.

She remained there but briefly before steaming to the mouth of the River Clyde, where she disembarked her passengers. Detached from the Home Fleet shortly thereafter, Tuscaloosa headed back to Hvalfjord and then proceeded thence to the East Coast of the United States for a many-weeks-long overhaul.

thumb|right|250px|Tuscaloosa in October 1942

November 1942 – May 1943

On 8 November 1942, Operation Torch—the code name of the Anglo-American effort to conquer Northwestern Africa from the Vichy French and Nazi Germany, and thence to expel the Axis powers from Africa—got under way.

Off Casablanca, French Morocco, the heavy cruisers Tuscaloosa and Wichita joined the new American battleship , the aircraft carrier Ranger and numerous light cruisers and destroyers as the "big guns" for the segment of Operation Torch in Morocco. (Other forces invaded Algeria via the Mediterranean Sea.) As American troops waded ashore, Tuscaloosas powerful 8-inch, 55-calibre guns, aided by accurate spotting from the cruiser's scout planes, thundered loudly and sent high explosive shells flying shorewards into the French Army's defensive positions. In the harbor, French Navy warships scurried about as they prepared to sortie against the attackers.

The unfinished and immobile French Navy battleship , could still throw a powerful punch from her few completed naval guns, and she fired several relatively accurate salvoes, straddling the American warships several times with shell splashes. (The French did not have any fire control radars at that time, or for years later.) The French Army's shore batteries at Table d'Aukasha and El Hank also proved to be troublesome. However, the combined might of the American warships and naval air power silenced both the shore batteries and the big guns of Jean Bart, and demolished several French Air Force airfields.

After being narrowly missed by several torpedoes from Vichy French submarine Antiope and shells from Jean Barts heavy artillery, Tuscaloosa retired from the battle scene to refuel at sea and to replenish her ammunition in deeper waters farther offshore. After these laborious operations, she remained offshore in support of the invasion and then she headed back to the East Coast of the United States for a major shipyard overhaul and replenishment at a large naval base.

Following this overhaul, Tuscaloosa rejoined the mission covering convoys bound for North Africa via the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, while American, British, Free French troops and airmen pushed the Axis Armies and the Vichy French forces out of Morocco and Algeria, and following that, cornering them in northern Tunisia around the city of Tunis. At that point, all of the Axis troops in Tunisia surrendered to the Allies in early May 1943, and thus the Axis powers were expelled from Africa.

Meanwhile, from March through May 1943, Tuscaloosa steamed in a task force on training exercises off the east coast of the United States.

Besides honing its fighting edge, this group formed a fast, mobile, and ready striking force, should German surface ships slip through the Allied blockade to terrorize Allied shipping in the Atlantic. In late May, she escorted , which bore British Prime Minister Churchill to New York City. After rejoining the task force for a brief time, Tuscaloosa joined Augusta at the Boston Navy Yard for a 10-day work period.

Summer 1943 - October 1943

After leaving Boston, she escorted to Halifax, Nova Scotia, before rendezvousing with Ranger and proceeding to Scapa Flow to resume operations with the British Home Fleet. Tuscaloosa conducted sorties into the North Sea, in company with British and American units, in attempts to once again entice German heavy units to sea. However, the hope of drawing the Germans into a decisive sea fight diminished each passing day as the enemy apparently sought to stay in his protected waters.

On 2 October 1943, Tuscaloosa formed part of the covering force for Ranger while the carrier launched air strikes against port installations and German shipping at the seaport town of Bodø, Norway, in Operation Leader.

These were the first-ever US Navy naval aviation air raids against any European targets, and they lasted from 2–6 October 1943. These raids reportedly devastated shore facilities and Wehrmacht forces in the Bodø area. German Luftwaffe shore-based warplanes attempted to attack the strike forces from Ranger, but they were shot down by covering American fighters.

Shortly afterward, the Germans did elect to come out to sea, conducting a foray against the important Allied weather station on Spitzbergen. Tirpitz and other heavy units subjected the installation and its garrison to a severe shelling before retiring, unscathed, to their Norwegian lair.

Tuscaloosa took part in the relief expedition to reestablish the station before the onset of winter. Assigned to Force One, the cruiser loaded two LCV(P) and cargo and departed Seyðisfjörður in company with four destroyers—three British and one American—on 17 October. Force Two, covering Force One, consisted of the battleship , the heavy cruiser , the carrier Ranger, and six destroyers.

On the morning of the 19th, Tuscaloosa's group arrived at devastated Barentsburg and immediately commenced unloading operations. While ice "growlers" and pinnacles hampered antisubmarine screening by the destroyers' sound gear, Tuscaloosa fielded a party of 160 men on shore to unload supplies and equipment to reestablish the weather station. By nightfall, the cargo had been safely unloaded, and the force left the area. After fueling at Seyðisfjörður, the cruiser proceeded to the Clyde to disembark the survivors of the original Spitzbergen garrison.

December 1943 – May 1944

Tuscaloosa conducted one more sweep of the Norwegian coast in an attempt to draw German fleet units to sea, but the enemy chose not to give battle. Upon the cruiser's return to Iceland, she was detached from the Home Fleet and proceeded to New York where she began major overhaul on 3 December 1943.

Upon completion of the refit in February 1944, Tuscaloosa engaged in Fleet exercises and shore bombardment practice out of Casco Bay until April and then entered the Boston Navy Yard for installation of radio intelligence and electronic countermeasures gear. Later that month, she embarked Rear Admiral Morton L. Deyo, Commander, CruDiv 7, and task force commander, and set out for the Clyde to join the Allied Forces massing for the assault on the European continent.

During the interim period prior to D-Day, Tuscaloosa conducted further shore bombardment practice and engaged in further exercises. Her aviation unit exchanged its venerable Curtiss SOC Seagulls for British Supermarine Spitfires and checked them out for spotting purposes. However, they remained shore-based for the remainder of their time operating in support of the invasion.

June 1944 – July 1944

On 3 June, Tuscaloosa steamed in company with the rest of Task Force 125 (TF 125) bound for the Normandy beaches. At 0550, 6 June, she opened fire with her battery, and three minutes later her guns engaged Fort Ile de Tatihou, Baie de la Seine. For the remainder of D-Day, coast defense batteries, artillery positions, troop concentrations, and motor transport all came under the fire of Tuscaloosas guns, which were aided by her air spotters and by fire control parties attached to Army units on shore. VOS-7, a US Navy Spotter Squadron flying Supermarine Spitfire VBs and Seafire IIIs, was one of the units which provided targeting coordinates and fire control. Initial enemy return fire was inaccurate, but it improved enough by the middle of the day to force the cruiser to take evasive action.

On the afternoon of 9 June, Tuscaloosa returned to Plymouth to replenish her depleted ammunition. Back in the vicinity of the Îles Saint-Marcouf on the evening of the 11th, she remained on station in the fire-support area until 21 June, providing gunfire support on call from her shore fire control party operating with Army units. She then returned to Britain.

Five days later, on 26 June, the Army's VII Corps mounted a landward assault against Cherbourg, supported by ships of the covering force from the seaward side. For four hours, Tuscaloosa and her consorts dueled with the accurate German shore batteries. During the action, the enemy frequently straddled the British and American ships and forced them to take evasive action. Great clouds of smoke and dust, kicked up by the intense bombardment conducted from sea and land, initially hampered Allied fire. By noontime, however, visibility improved and greatly aided the accuracy of the bombardment.

In July, with the beachhead secured in Normandy and Allied forces pushing into occupied France, Tuscaloosa steamed from Belfast to the Mediterranean to join British, French, and American forces assembling for Operation Anvil-Dragoon, the invasion of southern France.

August 1944 – January 1945

Following preliminary bombardment exercises off Oran, French North Africa, Tuscaloosa was based at Palermo, Italy, and got underway on 13 August. Two days later, Tuscaloosa commenced fire at 0635 and continued to pound targets ashore until the combined Allied forces stormed onto the beaches at H-Hour, 0800. Then, moving off the curve, Tuscaloosa leisurely cruised the shoreline, visually inspecting it for targets of opportunity. A troublesome pillbox at the St. Raphel breakwater provoked Tuscaloosas attention, and the cruiser's shells soon destroyed it. Air spotters located a field battery, and Tuscaloosas gunners promptly knocked it out of action with three direct hits.

For the next 11 days, the cruiser delivered fire support for the right flank of the Army's advance to the Italian frontier. She engaged German shore batteries and fought off air attacks. The raids—conducted by Junkers Ju 88s and Dornier Do 217s singly, or in small groups—usually occurred during the covering force's nightly retirement from the beachheads. Of the high altitude variety, these aerial assaults included the use of radar-controlled glider bombs. However, radar counter-measures and jamming devices, as well as effective evasive action and gunfire, thwarted these twilight and nocturnal attacks.

In September, when Allied forces had secured footholds in both western and southern France, Tuscaloosa returned to the United States for refitting at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. After a short exercise period in Chesapeake Bay, she steamed via the Panama Canal to the west coast and reported to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. After stopping briefly at San Diego, she proceeded on westward to Pearl Harbor, where she conducted various exercises before steaming to Ulithi to join Commander, 3rd Fleet in January 1945.

February 1945 – August 1945

thumb|USS Tuscaloosa and [[USS Arkansas (BB-33)|USS Arkansas (background) bombarding Iwo Jima, 17 February 1945. A Vought OS2U Kingfisher is flying in the foreground.]]

Following her sortie from Ulithi, she joined the bombardment group off Iwo Jima at dawn on 16 February. Three days later, as waves of landing craft bore marines shoreward to invade the island, Tuscaloosas guns pounded Japanese positions inland. Then, after the Americans had reached land, her batteries supported their advances with incessant fire and illumination. This continued from 19 February to 14 March, throughout all phases of the bitterly fought campaign to wrest the island from the Japanese.

After the Iwo Jima operation, she returned to Ulithi to join Task Force 54 (TF 54), spending four hectic days replenishing stores, ammunition, and fuel in preparation for the next operation: Okinawa, at the end of the chain of the Japanese home islands. On Palm Sunday, 25 March, Tuscaloosas main and secondary batteries opened fire on shore targets pinpointed by aerial reconnaissance. Time considerations only allowed a six-day respite in the middle of the arduous campaign for replenishment purposes, Tuscaloosa stood on duty for the entire operation.

Tuscaloosas charmed life in the face of everything the Axis could throw at her still held through the maelstrom of the kamikazes which came at the invasion ships and their escorts from all quarters. The "Divine Wind" came down from the Japanese home islands, in the form of planes piloted by pilots so loyal to their Emperor that they unhesitatingly gave their lives to defend their home soil.

Tuscaloosas gunners splashed two of the intruders. One, headed for the fantail of , flew apart as the cruiser's shells splashed her in the old battleship's wake. The other headed for an escorting destroyer in the screen only to be splashed after hitting a curtain of fire from the cruiser's guns.

Only the mop-up of determined resistance ashore remained when Tuscaloosa departed from Okinawa on 28 June. Two days later, she arrived in Leyte Gulf, Philippine Islands; there reporting to Commander, 7th Fleet, for duty. Six weeks later, with Allied warships bombarding her shores with near impunity and Allied planes sweeping her skies clear of rapidly dwindling numbers of her defending aircraft, Japan surrendered.

On 27 August, Tuscaloosa, in company with other units of the 7th Fleet, departed Subic Bay in the Philippines, bound for Korean and Manchurian waters.

Post-war

She touched at Qingdao, China, en route, and proceeded to cruise off the newly liberated ports of Dalian and Port Arthur, Manchuria; Yantai, Taku, Weihaiwei and Qingdao, China, before finally anchoring off Jinsen (now Incheon), Korea on 8 September to support the landings of Marines nearby.

After a stay of 22 days, Tuscaloosa put to sea once more on 30 September, bound for Taku, China, to support Marines landing there. She next sailed for Yantai on 6 October but, en route, received orders changing her destination to Jinsen to take on provisions.

As Chinese Nationalist and Communist forces jockeyed for position to control formerly Japanese-held territory, American forces stood by in the uneasy role of observers. Tuscaloosa arrived off Yantai, then held by the Communists, on 13 October. Remaining until 3 November, she lay at anchor off the port, keeping well informed on the situation ashore through daily conferences with officials of the Communist Eighth Route Army. During this period, collaborationist troops who had been loyal to the Japanese during the war, clashed with Communist forces near Yantai.

On 3 November, she put to sea, bound for Qingdao, where the cruiser spent one evening before proceeding down the Chinese coast to call at Shanghai. There, she took on board 214 army and 118 navy passengers for "Magic Carpet" transportation home for demobilization.

She arrived in Hawaii on 26 November, where additional passenger facilities were installed, and took on board 206 more men before departing Hawaiian waters on the 28th and arriving at San Francisco on 4 December. After voyage repairs, the ship sailed for the South Pacific on 14 December, via the Solomon Islands, and proceeded to Nouméa, New Caledonia.

Tuscaloosa embarked troops at Guadalcanal, moved to the Russell Islands where she took on more passengers, and arrived at Nouméa on New Year's Day 1946. By that afternoon, the ship got underway for the west coast with more than 500 passengers.

She arrived at Pearl Harbor nine days into the new year, fueled, and picked up additional demobilized servicemen to transport home. She sailed for San Francisco on 10 January and arrived five days later. On 29 January, the men delivered, Tuscaloosa stood out of San Francisco bound for the east coast on her last cruise as an active member of the fleet.

Placed out of commission at Philadelphia on 13 February 1946, Tuscaloosa remained in reserve there until she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 March 1959. Her hulk was sold on 25 June to the Boston Metals Company of Baltimore, Maryland, for scrapping.

The ship's former mast is the centerpiece of the Tuscaloosa Veterans Memorial Park, which also features one of her five-inch guns.

Awards

  • American Defense Service Medal with "FLEET" clasp and "A" device
  • European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with five battle stars
  • Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two battle stars
  • World War II Victory Medal
  • Navy Occupation Medal with "ASIA" clasp
  • China Service Medal

Citations

References

  • USS Wichita/USS Tuscaloosa Veteran's Association
  • Navy photographs of Tuscaloosa (CA-37)
  • "Let's Join the Navy!" promotional short film featuring USS Tuscaloosa