80 years ago today: an amazing overhead photograph of USS Houston (CL-81) underway off Norfolk, Virginia, 12 January 1944, showing off the 610-foot Cleveland-class light cruiser’s armament to include a dozen 6″/47s in four triple turrets, another dozen 5″/38 DP guns in six twin turrets, at least 28 Bofors 40mm, and 10 20mm Orleikons as well as twin stern catapults for as many as four armed floatplanes.
Note the sun casting the cruiser’s silhouette across the water. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-214194
Built at Newport News, CL-81 was originally to be named Vicksburg but was renamed while on the ways to commemorate Admiral Hart’s doomed final flagship.
Commissioned on 20 December 1943, she is shown above during her shakedown cruise period, which saw her roam from Boston to the Caribbean.
Sailing for the Pacific in April 1944, Houston saw her first combat screening Mitscher’s carriers as their planes pounded the Marianas on 12-13 June and the Bonins on 15-16 June.
Her war was cut short due to a crippling air attack in October that left her with two separate aerial torpedo hits– including an otherwise impossible strike on the bottom of the hull as she was hit the second time while already severely listing.
Torpedo damage diagram on the USS Houston (CL-81) from torpedo hits off Formosa on 14 and 16 October 1944.
Houston received but three battle stars for World War II service as she required extensive reconstruction.
In the late 1940s, she saw much overseas cruising in European waters and was decommissioned on 15 December 1947, having served just four years with the fleet– and almost a year of that in repair. She was disposed of in 1959 after a dozen years in mothballs.