USS Des Moines (CA-134)

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USS Des Moines (CA-134)
period of service US Navy (48 stars)
Keel laying: May 28, 1945
Launch: September 27, 1946
Commissioning: November 17, 1948
Decommissioning: July 6, 1961
Whereabouts: Wrecked in 2007
Technical specifications
Length: 218.5 m
Width: 22.86 m
Draft: 6.71 m
Standard displacement: 17,255 ts
maximum displacement: 20,934 ts
Drive: 4 screws each with a General Electric steam turbine

and a Babcock & Wilcox steam boiler, output: 120,000 hp

Maximum speed 33 kn (61.12 km / h)
Armament: 9 × 8 "(20.3 cm) guns in three triple turrets, 12 × 5" (12.7 cm) guns in 6 twin turrets,

24 × 3 "(7.62 cm) guns in 12 twin towers and various anti-aircraft weapons

Crew: 1799 officers and men

The second USS Des Moines (CA-134) , called "Daisy Mae" was the lead ship the group consisting of a total of three completed ships Des Moines-class cruiser , which in the US Navy as "Gun Cruiser" so heavy cruiser was classified . She got her nickname from a supporting character in a well-known cartoon series of the early 1950s, Li'l Abner . After the USS Des Moines, the USS Salem (CA-139) and the USS Newport News (CA-148) from the Des Moines class were put into service.

The USS Des Moines was laid down on May 28, 1945 by the Bethlehem Steel Company in Quincy, Massachusetts , and commissioned on November 17, 1948 after being launched in September 1946. She did not take part in any armed conflict, but was the flagship of the 6th Fleet stationed in the Mediterranean for a long time in the 1950s , which took part in some NATO exercises and was the focus of the 1956 Suez Crisis and the 1958 Lebanon crisis in particular international interest and US foreign policy . She was also the first US warship after the Second World War , the Yugoslavia attended when she abstattete the Adriatic town of Rijeka in December 1950 a visit.

The USS Des Moines was decommissioned on July 14, 1961 and was for a long time in the port of Philadelphia , Pennsylvania with the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility (NISMF) because its fate was not clear. The US Navy had cleared the ship for scrapping, but a veteran initiative campaigned for the ship to be restored and taken to Milwaukee , Wisconsin as a museum ship . However, this project failed after lengthy debates and in August 2006 the scrapping contract was concluded with a Texan company and the Des Moines was towed to Brownsville in the US state of Texas in the following weeks and scrapped there until July 2007.

Explanations

  1. ↑ 9 further units of the class (CA-140 to CA-143 and CA-149 to CA-153) had been ordered, but were canceled again in 1945 and 1946, as there was no longer any need.

swell

  • Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships Vol. IV.Washington, DC: Naval History Division, 1969.

Web links

Commons : USS Des Moines (CA-134)  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files
USS Des Moines (CA-134) in the bay of Newport News on ancor - 1957