USS Atlanta (CL-104)

USS Atlanta (CL-104) leaves Seattle, Washington, June 27, 1948
Overview
Keel laying	January 25, 1943
Launch	February 6, 1944
Namesake	Atlanta , Georgia
1. Period of service
Commissioning	December 3, 1944
Decommissioning	April 1, 1970
Whereabouts	sunk
Technical specifications
Data on commissioning
displacement	11,744  ts
length	186.0 m
width	20.2 m
height	23.5 m chimney 34.5 m mast
Draft	7.5 m
crew	1384
drive	4 boilers, 4 steam turbines , 4 shafts , 100,000 hp
speed	32.5  kn
Range	11,000  nautical miles at 15 kn
Armament	12 × 6 "(152 mm) L / 47 in 4 triplet towers 12 × 5 "(127 mm) L / 38 in 6 twin towers 28 × 40mm L / 56 10 × 20 mm
Aircraft	4 Vought OS2U
Radio call sign	November - Bravo - Delta - Zulu

The USS Atlanta (CL-104) (later IX-304 ) was a Cleveland-class light cruiser of the United States Navy . The cruiser, which was also named after the city of Atlanta in Georgia in honor of the sunken light cruiser USS Atlanta (CL-51) , was in service with the US Navy from 1944 to 1949, was then converted into a test ship in 1964 and used for explosion tests. In 1970 the Atlanta was finally decommissioned and sunk.

history

Construction and commissioning

Launched the Atlanta , February 6, 1944

The Atlanta , approved in fiscal 1942, was funded entirely through the sale of war bonds to the citizens of Atlanta and the surrounding area. In March 1943, Mayor John L. Connor presented a check to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox for $ 63 million . Previously, on January 25, the keel of the cruiser was laid at New York Shipbuilding in Camden , New Jersey . After the ship was christened by Margaret Mitchell , the author of Gone With the Wind , who also christened the first Atlanta , on February 6, 1944, the cruiser was launched. After further refitting, the Atlanta was put into service in Philadelphia on December 3rd under the command of Captain BH Colyear . On January 5, 1945, the cruiser then left Philadelphia to carry out first test drives in the Chesapeake Bay and the Caribbean . On February 14, he returned to Norfolk , from there the ship moved to the Philadelphia Navy Yard , where minor repairs were made. On March 27, the Atlanta then set course for the Pacific, after a stopover in Guantanamo and crossing the Panama Canal , she arrived in Pearl Harbor on April 18 . She took part in exercises in Hawaiian waters until May 1, then ran to Ulithi Atoll .

War effort

On May 12, Atlanta was assigned to the Fast Carrier Task Force (TF 58), with which it sailed for the first time ten days later. The operation led the association to Okinawa, from where the carrier aircraft flew attacks on the Ryūkyū Islands and Kyushu . On June 13th, the association ran to the Philippines, where it remained until July 1st. Now known as Task Force 38, the Fast Carrier Task Force attacked metropolitan Japan again. The Atlanta was involved in several coastal bombardments on Honshū and Hokkaidō in the following years . At the time of the Japanese surrender on August 15, the cruiser was off the coast of Honshūs when the order to end all acts of war arrived. On September 16, the Atlanta ran into Tokyo Bay , where it helped occupy the naval base in Yokosuka until September 29 . On September 30, the course was set for the United States, on board the cruiser were 500 US soldiers who were brought back to the States as part of Operation Magic Carpet . After a stopover on Guam , the cruiser arrived in Seattle on October 24th . From there she moved to the Terminal Island Naval Shipyard , where she was overhauled by January 1946.

post war period

The Atlanta en route to Sydney, May 1947

On January 3, 1946, the Atlanta then sailed towards Sasebo , Japan. From January to June 1946, the cruiser then operated in the Far East and visited the ports of Manila , Tsingtao and Shanghai , the islands of Okinawa and Saipan and the Japanese cities of Nagasaki , Kagoshima and Yokosuka. At the end of June, the Atlanta returned to California via Guam, where it arrived in San Pedro on June 27 . Two days later, she went to dock for overhaul at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard .

On October 8th, after the work was completed, exercises off the coast of San Diego followed. The cruiser remained off the California coast until February 23, 1947, when it ran to Hawaii for exercises. On May 1, the Atlanta left Pearl Harbor for Australia as part of Task Force 38. On May 27, the cruiser arrived in Sydney Harbor , but the following day it set course for California again, where it arrived in San Pedro on July 28, after stops in Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Guam. After a series of maneuvers off the California coast, the Atlanta arrived in Hawaii on September 28th, from where it continued to China via Yokosuka. After visiting ports in Tsingtao, Hong Kong , Singapore and Keelung on Formosa , the cruiser returned to San Diego via Kwajalein and Hawaii, where it arrived on May 19, 1948. After a brief visit to Juneau , Alaska , June 29 through July 6, the Atlanta returned to Seattle on July 12 for an overhaul. After the work was completed on November 20, maneuvers in the San Diego area followed.

In February 1949, the cruiser was used to train marine reserves between San Diego and San Francisco, on March 1, the Atlanta then ran into the Mare Island Naval Shipyard , where preparations for decommissioning began. On July 1, 1949, the Atlanta was released from active service in the US Navy and transferred to the Pacific Reserve Fleet . On October 1, 1962, the ship was deleted from the ship's registers and its scrapping was planned.

Conversion to a test ship

The Atlanta after its renovation

However, the Atlanta initially escaped its fate, in 1964 the conversion of the cruiser began in the San Francisco Naval Shipyard. The ship was to serve as a "shock test target ship" in the future and was equipped with extensive radar systems for this purpose, which were and should be used on newer ships. In addition, the former cruiser received two deckhouses including Macks, as they were used on the new builds of the heavy guided missile frigates of the Leahy and Belknap classes . The ship put into service on May 15, 1964 under the new registration number IX-304 had a crew of 169 seamen and 60 civil engineers.

With the former cruiser equipped in this way, several blast attempts were carried out in 1965 off the island of Kahoʻolawe as part of Operation Sailor Hat . During the two test explosions, Bravo on February 6 and Charlie on April 16, 500 tons of TNT were detonated each time in order to investigate the effects on a fleet of various ships anchored at different distances from the explosion center. The Atlanta was closest to the center of the explosion in each of the explosions and was badly damaged in both cases, but did not sink.

Retirement and whereabouts

After the end of the test series, the Atlanta was transferred to Stockton , where it remained until 1970. On April 1, 1970, she was decommissioned and her name was deleted from the ship lists, on October 1, 1970, the former cruiser was sunk by an explosive charge off San Clemente Island .

Web links

Commons : USS Atlanta (CL-104)  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

• Pictures of the USS Atlanta at navsource.org

Individual evidence

1. ^ USS Atlanta in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships , as of August 29, 2008
2. ↑ navsource.org , as of August 29, 2008
3. ↑ Naval Historical Center , as of August 29, 2008
4. ↑ Terzibaschitsch: US Navy cruiser. From the Omaha class to Long Beach . P. 315f