USS Pensacola (CA-24)

USS Pensacola

Ship data flag  United States Ship type Heavy cruiser class Pensacola class Shipyard New York Navy Yard , New York Keel laying October 27, 1926 Launch April 25, 1929 Commissioning February 6, 1930 Decommissioning August 26, 1946 Whereabouts Sunk as a target ship on November 10, 1948

Ship dimensions and crew length 178.5 m ( Lüa ) width 19.9 m Draft Max. 5.9 m displacement Standard : 9,100 ts Maximum: 11,512 tn.l.   crew 653 men

Machine system machine 8 White-Forster boilers 4 Parsons turbines Machine performance 107,000 PS (78,698 kW) propeller 4th

Armament 10 × 20.3 cm L / 55 Sk 8 × 12.7 cm L / 25 flak 28 × 4 cm flak 18 × 2 cm flak 6 torpedo tubes ∅ 53.3 cm 4 catapult planes Armor Deck : 75 mm Belt: 51 mm Towers : 25–38 mm Command post: 203 mm

The USS Pensacola (CA-24) was a US Navy heavy cruiser that was laid down in the New York Navy Yard on October 27, 1926. She was the type ship of the class of the same name . The launch was on April 25, 1929, and the ship entered service in February 1930. During the Pacific War, which received Pensacola from Tokyo Rose the nickname "Gray Ghost".

history

Her maiden voyage took her to Peru and Chile . She then had her first missions in the Atlantic , the Caribbean and then also in the Pacific . In July 1931 she was reclassified as a heavy cruiser.

When the Pacific War with the Japanese began on December 7, 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor , the Pensacola was escorting a convoy with troops, planes and other equipment to the Philippines . The Pensacola convoy named after her was diverted to Australia after the Japanese invasion of the Philippines .

After patrols in the area of Samoa , the Pensacola escorted the USS Enterprise and the USS Yorktown until the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Then she was stationed in the Solomon Islands , where she received a heavy torpedo hit at the Battle of Tassafaronga , the 120 Cost sailors their lives.

The necessary repair work took a very long time, so that the Pensacola was not operational again until November 1943 and could take part in the Battle of the Gilbert Islands . The next deployment was the Battle of the Marshall Islands in January 1944.

After some operations with the carrier fleet in the Central Pacific, near the Kuril Islands and Wake and Marcus , the Pensacola took part in the Battle of Leyte .

On February 17, 1945, the ship was hit several times by shells from Japanese coastal artillery during the bombing of Iwo Jima . The Pensacola was able to continue the bombing of the island after a short damage repair. The Pensacola also participated in the battle of Okinawa with coastal bombing.

After the end of the war, the Pensacola drove units home as part of Operation Magic Carpet before serving as a target for the American nuclear tests in Bikini Atoll . The ship survived the two explosions on July 1 and July 25, 1946, badly damaged. After the subsequent towing to Kwajalein , the Pensacola was decommissioned on August 26, 1946. Two years later it was again used as a target in a naval exercise in the Pacific off the coast of Washington state , during which it was sunk on November 10, 1948.

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  USS Pensacola 1945

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  The Pensacola in a bay on the Aleutian island of Attu on June 9, 1944

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  Sinking of the Pensacola as a target ship on November 10, 1948

Web links

Commons : USS Pensacola  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• USS Pensacola at navsource.org (Eng.)