Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 98293
‘Friendship Lights’ aboard Boston cast a glow on the waters of the Bay of Naples during CAG-1’s October 3-10 visit to ‘Bella Napoli’. A tradition among the ships of the Sixth Fleet, the lights symbolize the peaceful intent of the Fleet’s mission in the Mediterranean Sea. (quoted from the original photo caption). The original print is undated, but was taken during the mid-1960s.
USS Boston (CA-69/CAG-1), was a Baltimore-class heavy cruiser, commissioned 30 June 1943 at Bethlehem Steel in her namesake state at Quincy, Massachusetts.
Picking up 10 battlestars in WWII from Kwajalein to Honshu, she was recommissioned as guided missile cruiser in 1952 spending much of her time Cold War in NATO areas– where the above image was taken on a Med cruise.
She ended her career plastering NVA positions along the Vietnamese coastline, picking up another five battlestars before she was decommissioned at the Boston Navy Yard in 1970, coming full circle in her 27-year naval career.
She was scrapped in 1976.
