Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday April 20, 2016: The Slugger of the Nevada Test Site
NHHC Catalog #: 80-G-466457
Here we see the Northampton-class heavy cruiser USS Louisville (CL/CA-28) at the Naval Fleet Review in New York Harbor on 31 May 1934. If you will, please note USS Lexington (CV-2) in the background. The sparkly new “Treaty cruiser” found herself in the thick of a very unsportsmanlike naval war just seven years after this peaceful scene.
When the U.S. wrapped up World War I, they stopped making large cruisers for over a decade, coasting on the legacy vessels commissioned during and prior to that Great War. Then in 1928 came the top-heavy but very modern two-ship 11,500-ton (full load) Pensacola (CA-24) class cruisers with their armament of 10 decent 8″/55 (20.3 cm) Mark 9 guns (the same pieces carried on Lexington shown above).
Mark 9 turrets and guns intended for USS Louisville CA-28 under construction at the Washington Navy Yard via navweaps
However, with the limits of the Washington Naval Treaty, the need was seen to trim back on the P-Cola design and the next six resulting 9,200-ton Northampton‘s, with just 9 of the 8″/55s and a trimmed back armor scheme were ordered after.
The subject of our study, CA-28, was laid down at Puget Sound Naval Yard, Bremerton, Washington on Independence Day 1928, just a little over a year before the Stock Market Crash brought the Roaring 20s to a sudden halt. As such, she was the third ship on the Naval List to carry the name, with the first being a City-class ironclad during the Civil War and the second a WWI troopship.
USS LOUISVILLE (CA-28) Gift of Admiral H.G. Bowen, 6/68 Catalog #: NH 65629
Louisville‘s armor was so thin, in fact, that she was originally classified as a light cruiser when commissioned 15 January 1931 (CL-28) but due to the nature of her armament was reclassified as a heavy a few months later.
She had a happy peacetime life, conducting training cruises for mids, visiting foreign ports throughout the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific.
Louisville 1934
USS Louisville saluting during Memorial Day ceremonies at New York City, May 1934
Photographed during the early 1930s. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 51903
USS LOUISVILLE (CA-28) Caption: Photograph autographed June 1967 by Admiral Thomas C. Hart, USN (Ret). He used the LOUISVILLE as his flagship from 18 July 1934 to 1 April 1935 while serving as Commander, Cruiser Division 6 Scouting Force. Description: Catalog #: NH 51432
Northampton-class sister USS Chicago (CA-29) leads CruDiv5 into the Caribbean, Canal Zone, on 4 May 1934, fleet problem 15. Following are USS Louisville (CA-28), USS Portland (CA-33), and USS Indianapolis (CA-35)
At Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1940. Note ship has 3-inch/50 caliber antiaircraft guns. Description: Courtesy of Donald Robertson Catalog #: NH 92256.
Her world started getting rough when the next World War broke out in 1939 and she started picking up new armament and getting ready for service in the Navy of the world’s largest armed neutral. This included running to South Africa and picking up a load of His Majesty’s gold to bring to the states. She arrived at 22 Jan 1941 at New York with $148,342.212.55 in British gold brought from Simonstown to be deposited in American banks.
When Pearl Harbor changed that whole neutrality thing, she was in waters off Borneo but luckily missed bumping into the Japanese fleet and joined TF 119 for a few pinprick carrier raids before sailing to the West Coast to have her armament changed wholesale.
View taken 10 November 1942, at Mare Island, California. Circles indicate alterations. Boat davits for a 26″ motor whaleboat; bridge alterations; 20mm guns added to no. 2 turret. Note style of bow “28.” Description: Catalog #: 19-N-36771
Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, 11 November 1942. Description: Catalog #: 19-N-36765
Once made ready for the new war without treaty obligations, she sailed north for the Arctic region, where she took the fight to the Japanese occupation forces in the Aleutian Islands. She plastered both Attu and Kiska with her big 8-inchers and safeguarded convoys in the Northern Pac.
Steams out of Kulak Bay, Adak, Aleutian Islands, bound for operations against Attu, 25 April 1943. The photograph looks toward Sweepers Cove. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-72060
View of bombardment in a fog, Aleutians. Probably taken during Attu Operation, May 1943. Description: Catalog #: NH 92379
USS Louisville (CA 28) operating in the Bering Sea during May 1943. She is followed by USS San Francisco (CA 38).
Shells Attu, 11 May 1943. View of forward 8″ guns in action. Description: Catalog #: NH 92382
Next came service as the flag of Rear Admiral J. B. Oldendorf and a string of naval gunfire support in the Marshal Islands
Kwajalein invasion, January-February 1944 Caption: Namur Island under heavy bombardment, just prior to the initial landings, 1 February 1944. Blockhouse in lower center has just received a direct hit from an 8″ gun of USS LOUISVILLE, one of whose planes took this photo. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-218802
Then came the Marianas, the Palaus and on to the Philippines, where things got out of hand. As part of the Battle of Surigao Strait, Louisville helped to sink the Japanese battleship Fusō and, along with USS Denver (CL-58) and USS Portland (CA-33) rain fire on the Japanese “Treaty cruiser” Mogami.
Moving on to support operations off Luzon, Louisville was hit by two Yokosuka D4Y Suisei kamikazes in the Lingayen Gulf, 6 January 1945.
USS Louisville (CA 28) is hit by a Kamikaze in Lingayen Gulf, Philippine Islands, 6 January 1945. Photographed from USS Salamaua (CVE 96)
While she was able to remain operable, the damage inflicted by the twin hits killed a Marine and 42 Sailors including RADM. Theodore E. Chandler. She shipped for Mare Island for repairs.
View of wrecked 40mm quad mount and other kamikaze damage by the bridge received January 1945 in Lingayen Gulf. Taken at Mare Island, 7 February 1945. Description: Catalog #: NH 92367
Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, 7 April 1945. Note: anchors; NEPANET (YTB-189) at left. Description: Catalog #: 19-N-83899
Rushing back to the fleet, she joined TF 54 off Okinawa and was soon in the gunline pumping shells into the Emperor’s positions.
USS LOUISVILLE (CA-28) off the Southern coast of Okinawa, 30 May 1945. She was hit by a kamikaze a few days later. LCI-1090 is alongside. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-K-5827
Another kamikaze hit on 5 June did less damage than the ones just five months before but she left for Mare Island again a week later for more repairs. Repairs complete, she sailed for Japan again in August but saw no more action before the end of the conflict. Finishing some post-war occupation and repatriation duties, Louisville was decommissioned on 17 June 1946 in Philadelphia.
She earned 13 battlestars for her service.
After floating in the mothballs fleet for 13 years, she was sold on 14 September 1959 to the Marlene Blouse Corporation of New York for her value in scrap.
In a way, she was much luckier than several of her sisters were. Class leader Northampton was sunk in the Battle of Tassafaronga, 30 November 1942 just a few months after Houston (CA-30) went down in the trap that was the Sunda Strait.
Battle of Sunda Strait, 28 February – 1 March 1942. Painting by John Hamilton depicting Louisville’s sister, USS Houston (CA 30), in her final action with Japanese forces
Likewise, sister Chicago (CA-29) was lost in Battle of Rennell Island in 1943.
Of the two survivors besides our hero, USS Augusta (CA-31) spent her war in the Atlantic and Med, being sold for scrap just weeks before Louisville while USS Chester (CA-27) had already been disposed of in the summer of 1959– leaving Lucky Louie as the last of her class on the Naval List
Her bell is preserved at the Naval Support Center in Louisville while her name endures with USS Louisville (SSN-724), a Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine commissioned in 1986 and homeported at Pearl Harbor.
However, there is another piece of the old cruiser that is quietly sitting in the high desert, having continued its military service well into the 1950s.
You see one of her Mark 9 turrets, sans guns, was sent to the Nevada Test Site and used there for several years.
The turret’s purpose, in the days when nuclear tests were conducted on towers aboveground, was to cut costs by eliminating multiple stations for measuring the gamma ray output of nuclear explosions detonated at different sites.
The late Bill McMaster of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory saw a way to create a single station that could turn and point its detectors at many sites. He had a surplus Navy gun turret shipped in from Mare Island Shipyard in the Bay Area.
The turret was installed as if aboard ship and fitted with a lead-lined barrel that could be aimed precisely at the top of a 500-foot tower a thousand or more yards away where the burst of gamma rays from a nuclear detonation would indicate its explosive yield.
The turret was used to diagnose three tests in 1957, all part of Operation Plumbbob. Soon after that, the turret was retired, as the U.S. and Soviet Union entered into agreements that led to an end to testing in the atmosphere.
There are no plans to move the old turret, which will likely remain as a quiet reminder of the old cruiser for decades to come.
Specs:
Displacement: 9,050 long tons (9,200 t) (standard)
Length: 600 ft. 3 in (182.96 m) oa
569 ft (173 m) pp
Beam: 66 ft. 1 in (20.14 m)
Draft: 16 ft. 4 in (4.98 m) (mean)
23 ft. (7.0 m) (max)
Installed power:
8 × White-Forster boilers
107,000 shp (80,000 kW)
Propulsion:
4 × Parsons reduction steam turbines, Curtis cruising gears
4 × screws
Speed: 32.7 kn (37.6 mph; 60.6 km/h)
Range: 10,000 nmi (12,000 mi; 19,000 km) at 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h)
Capacity: 1,500 short tons (1,400 t) fuel oil
Complement: 90 officers 601 enlisted
Armament: (As built)
9 × 8 in (203 mm)/55 caliber guns (3×3)
4 × 5 in (127 mm)/25 caliber anti-aircraft guns
2 × 3-pounder 47 mm (1.9 in) saluting guns
6 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
(1945)
9 × 8 in (203 mm)/55 caliber guns (3×3)
8 × 5 in (127 mm)/25 caliber anti-aircraft guns
2 × 3-pounder 47 mm (1.9 in) saluting guns
6 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
7 × quad 40 mm (1.6 in) Bofors guns
28 × 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon cannons
Armor:
Belt: 3–3 3⁄4 in (76–95 mm)
Deck: 1–2 in (25–51 mm)
Barbettes: 1 1⁄2 in (38 mm)
Turrets: 3⁄4–2 1⁄2 in (19–64 mm)
Conning Tower: 1 1⁄4 in (32 mm)
Aircraft carried: 4 × floatplanes
Aviation facilities: 2 × Amidship catapults
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has it place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
I’m a member, so should you be!
