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_underway_in_Puget_Sound_on_30_July_1943_(NH_94847).jpg) USSNew Orleans (CA-32), steams through a tight turn inElliott Bay,Washington, on 30 July 1943, following battle damage repairs and overhaul at thePuget Sound Navy Yard. | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Name | New Orleans |
| Namesake | City ofNew Orleans, Louisiana |
| Ordered | 13 February 1929 |
| Awarded |
|
| Builder | Brooklyn Navy Yard,Brooklyn, New York |
| Cost | $12,000,000 (limit of price) |
| Laid down | 14 March 1931 |
| Launched | 12 April 1933 |
| Sponsored by | Miss Cora S. Jahncke |
| Commissioned | 15 February 1934 |
| Decommissioned | 10 February 1947 |
| Reclassified | CA-32, 1 July 1931 |
| Stricken | 1 March 1959 |
| Identification |
|
| Nickname(s) | NO Boat[1] |
| Honors & awards | |
| Fate | Sold for scrap 22 September 1959 |
| General characteristics (as built)[2] | |
| Class & type | New Orleans-classcruiser |
| Displacement | 9,950 long tons (10,110 t) (standard) |
| Length | |
| Beam | 61 ft 9 in (18.82 m) |
| Draft |
|
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | |
| Speed | 32.7 kn (37.6 mph; 60.6 km/h) |
| Capacity | Fuel oil: 1,650 tons |
| Complement | 96 officers 819 enlisted |
| Armament | |
| Armor |
|
| Aircraft carried | 4 ×floatplanes |
| Aviation facilities | 2 ×Amidshipcatapults |
| General characteristics (1945)[3] | |
| Armament |
|
| Aviation facilities | 1 × Amidship catapult |
USSNew Orleans (CL/CA-32) was the leadNew Orleans-classcruiser in service with theUnited States Navy. TheNew Orleans-class cruisers were the last U.S. cruisers built to the specifications and standards of theWashington Naval Treaty of 1922. Such ships, with a limit of 10,000long tons (10,160 t) standard displacement and 8-inch (203 mm) caliber main guns may be referred to as "treaty cruisers." While she was originally classified alight cruiser because of her thin armor, soon after being laid down she was reclassified as aheavy cruiser because of her 8-inch guns. The term "heavy cruiser" was not defined until theLondon Naval Treaty in 1930.
New Orleans's keel was laid on 14 March 1931, at theNew York Navy Yard, commonly known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The ship was launched on 12 April 1933, sponsored by Cora S. Jahncke, a native ofNew Orleans, Louisiana, and daughter ofErnest L. Jahncke, a civil engineer and president of the Jahncke Shipbuilding Co. in New Orleans. Jahncke had served asassistant secretary of the Navy in the administration ofPresidentHerbert Hoover, returning to private life in March 1933 with the inauguration of PresidentFranklin Delano Roosevelt.New Orleans was commissioned at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 15 February 1934, withCaptainAllen B. Reed as the first commander. Attending the commissioning ceremonies wereRear AdmiralYates Stirling Jr., commandant of the New York Naval Yard, and former Assistant Navy Secretary Jahncke. AmongNew Orleans'junior officerplankowners in 1934, were Jahncke's son, Ensign E.L. Jahncke Jr. and Ensign T.H. Moorer, who asAdmiralThomas H. Moorer wasChief of Naval Operations from 1967 to 1970 andchairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 to 1974.
Under Captain Reed's command that ended on 30 August 1935,New Orleans made ashakedownTransatlantic crossing toGreat Britain andScandinavia in May and June 1934.New Orleans made ports of call and was greeted by thousands atStockholm, Sweden,Copenhagen, Denmark,Amsterdam, the Netherlands, andPortsmouth, England, returning to New York on 28 June. On 5 July,New Orleans sailed toBalboa, Panama, the western entrance to thePanama Canal to rendezvous with the heavy cruiserHouston, carrying President Roosevelt, on a nearly 12,000 nmi (22,000 km; 14,000 mi) cruise toHawaii and an exercise with the United States AirshipMacon and her aircraft off the California coast.
New Orleans reachedHonolulu, Hawaii, on 26 July 1934, andAstoria, Oregon, on 2 August, where the cruise ended.New Orleans sailed at once forPanama andCuba, stopping atSan Pedro, Los Angeles, on 7 August 1934. She exercised offNew England into 1935, then visited her namesake city at the end of March while en route to joinUnited States FleetScouting ForceCruiser Division 6 based out of San Pedro, and operating along the coast of California and the eastern Pacific.New Orleans was open for public viewing while visiting the"Crescent City" and thousands of citizens visited the ship during the time she was berthed there. Shortly after arriving at San Pedro, the cruiser participated infleet problem XVI from 29 April to 10 June. It was the largest mock battle ever staged and conducted in five separate stages over 5 million sq mi of the North Central Pacific betweenMidway, Hawaii, and theAleutian Islands, involving 321 vessels and 70,000 men. In June,New Orleans visitedSan Diego for the first-everFleet Week, one of 114 American warships in the "mightiest fleet ever assembled under the U.S. flag" for theCalifornia Pacific International Exposition.
New Orleans returned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York, where she was dry-docked for maintenance from 20 August to 7 December 1936. Early in 1937, she was once more in the Pacific. Aside from winter training in theCaribbean early in 1939, she served out of California ports until joining theHawaiian Detachment on 12 October 1939, for exercises, training, and as war drew close, vigilant patrol.
Moored inPearl Harbor on 7 December 1941,New Orleans was taking power and light from the dock, her engines under repair. With yard power out during the attack,New Orleans' engineers began to raise steam, working by flashlight, while on deck men fired on theJapanese attackers with rifles and pistols. The crew was forced to break the locks on the ammunition ready boxes as the keys could not be located, and because the ship was taking power from the dock, the5"/25 cal AA gun had to be aimed and fired manually. The gunners topside were ducking machine gun bullets andshrapnel, training their guns manually, as they had no ammunition other than the few shells in their ready boxes. The ammunition hoists did not have power, making getting more ammunition topside to the gun crews nearly impossible. The 54 lb (24 kg) shells had to be pulled up the powerless hoists by ropes attached to their metal cases. Every man with no specific job at the moment formed ammunition lines to get the shells to the guns. A number of her crew were injured when afragmentation bomb exploded close aboard.New Orleans suffered no severe damage during the attack.
Before having the engine work complete at Pearl Harbor, the cruiser convoyed troops toPalmyra Atoll andJohnston Atoll operating on only three of her four engines; she then returned to San Francisco on 13 January 1942 for engineering repairs and installation of new search radar and 20 mm guns. She sailed on 12 February, commanding the escort for a troop convoy toBrisbane; from Australia, she screened a convoy toNouméa, and returned to Pearl Harbor to join Task Force 11.
Task Force 11sortied on 15 April to join theYorktown task force southwest of theNew Hebrides. This joint force, together with a cruiser-destroyer group, won theBattle of the Coral Sea on 7–8 May, driving back a southward thrust of the Japanese, which threatened Australia and New Zealand and their seaborne lifelines. In this battle,Lexington was sunk andNew Orleans stood by, her men diving overboard to rescue survivors and her boat crews closing the burning carrier, saving 580 ofLexington's crew who were subsequently landed at Nouméa.New Orleans then patrolled the easternSolomons until sailing to replenish at Pearl Harbor.
New Orleans sailed on 28 May, screeningEnterprise, to surprise the Japanese in theBattle of Midway. On 2 June, she met with theYorktown force, and two days later joined battle. Three of the four Japanese carriers—Akagi,Kaga, andSoryu—were sunk by hits scored indive bomber attacks. The fourth carrier,Hiryu, was found and wrecked later, but not before her dive bombers had damagedYorktown so badly she had to be abandoned.
Again theNew Orleans was replenished at Pearl Harbor, steaming out on 7 July to meet off theFiji Islands for the invasion of the Solomon Islands, during which she screened theSaratoga. Fighting off enemy air attacks on 24–25 August, theNew Orleans aided theU.S. Marine Corps beachhead onGuadalcanal, as a Japanese landing expedition was turned back in theBattle of the Eastern Solomons. At this point,New Orleans had been in theCoral Sea for two full months, and food began to run low. The crew went on half rations and Spam became the main course of every meal; eventually, they ran out of rice. When theSaratoga was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on 31 August, theNew Orleans escorted her to Pearl Harbor, arriving on 21 September.
With the repaired carrier,New Orleans sailed to Fiji early in November 1942, then proceeded toEspiritu Santo, arriving on 27 November to return to action in the Solomons. With four other cruisers and six destroyers, she fought in theBattle of Tassafaronga on the night of 30 November, engaging a Japanese destroyer-transport force. When the flagshipMinneapolis was struck by two torpedoes,New Orleans, next astern, was forced to sheer away to avoid collision, and ran into the track of a torpedo, which detonated the ship's forward magazines and gasoline tanks. This explosion severed 150 ft (46 m) of her bow just forward of turret number two. The severed bow, including turret number one, swung around the port side and punched several holes in the length ofNew Orleans' hull before sinking at the stern and damaging the port inboard propeller.[4] With one-quarter of her length gone, she slowed to 2 kn (2.3 mph; 3.7 km/h) and was on fire. Everyone in turrets one and two perished; 183 men were killed. Herbert Brown, a seaman in the ship's plotting room, described the scene after the torpedo hit:
"I had to see. I walked alongside the silent turret two and was stopped by a lifeline stretched from the outboard port lifeline to the side of the turret. Thank God it was there, for one more step and I would have pitched headfirst into the dark water 30 feet below. The bow was gone; 125 feet of ship and the number-one main battery turret with three 8-inch guns were gone. Eighteen hundred tons of ship were gone. Oh my God, all those guys I went through boot camp with – all gone"[5]
Damage control parties managed to repair the ship enough to sail toTulagi Harbor near daybreak on 1 December.
The crew camouflaged their ship from air attack, jury-rigged a bow of coconut logs, and worked clearing away wreckage. Eleven days later,New Orleans sailed stern first, to avoid sinking, toCockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney, Australia, arriving on 24 December. At Cockatoo, the damaged propeller was replaced and other repairs were made including the installation of a temporary stub bow. On 7 March 1943, she left Sydney forPuget Sound Navy Yard, sailing backward the entire voyage, where a new bow was fitted with the use ofMinneapolis' number-two turret. All battle damage was repaired, and she was given a major refit involving the reduction of the forward superstructure along the lines of other prewar cruisers, adding new air-search and surface-search radars, as well as numerous 20 mm and 40 mm Bofors antiaircraft guns. In addition, her boilers, machinery, and hull structures were overhauled to almost new condition. She continued to sail with the back portion (aft) riveted and the front portion (bow) welded.
_reaching_Tulagi_on_1_December_1942.jpg)
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_damaged_and_camouflaged_at_Tulagi%2c_in_early_December_1942_(80-G-216014).gif)
Returning to Pearl Harbor on 31 August for combat training,New Orleans next joined a cruiser-destroyer force to bombardWake Island on 5–6 October, repulsing a Japanese torpedo-plane attack. Her next sortie from Pearl Harbor came on 10 November, when she sailed to fire precision bombardment in theGilberts on 20 November, then to screen carriers striking the easternMarshalls on 4 December. In aerial attacks that day, the newLexington, namesake of the carrier whose menNew Orleans had pulled from the Coral Sea, was torpedoed, andNew Orleans guarded her successful retirement to repairs at Pearl Harbor, arriving on 9 December.
%2c_USS_Pensacola_(CA-24)_and_USS_New_Orleans_(CA-32)_at_Pearl_Harbor_on_31_October_1943.jpg)
From 29 January 1944,New Orleans fired on targets in the Marshalls, hitting air installations and shipping as the Navy tookKwajalein. She fueled atMajuro, then sailed 11 February to join the fast carriers in a raid onTruk, Japanese bastion in theCarolines on 17–18 February. While air strikes were flown,New Orleans, with other warships circled the atoll to catch escaping ships; the task force's combined gunfire sank a light cruiser, a destroyer, a trawler, and asubmarine chaser. The force sailed on to hit the Marianas, then returned to Majuro and Pearl Harbor.
The carriers, withNew Orleans in escort, attacked targets in the Carolines late in March, then in April, sailed south to support Allied landings atHollandia (currently known as Jayapura),New Guinea. There on 22 April, a disabledYorktown plane flew intoNew Orleans' mainmast, hitting gun mounts as it fell into the sea. The ship was sprayed with gas as the plane exploded on hitting the water; one crew member was lost, and another badly injured, butNew Orleans continued in action, patrolling and plane guarding off New Guinea, then joining in further raids on Truk andSatawan, which she bombarded on 30 April. She returned to Majuro on 4 May.
Preparations were made in the Marshalls for the invasion of the Marianas, for whichNew Orleans sortied from Kwajalein on 10 June. She bombardedSaipan on 15–16 June, then joined the screen protecting carriers as they prepared to meet theJapanese Mobile Fleet in theBattle of the Philippine Sea.
New Orleans made patrols and bombardments on Saipan andTinian into August, returned toEniwetok on the 13th, and sailed the 28th for carrier raids on theBonins, bombardments ofIwo Jima on 1–2 September, and direct air support for the invasion of thePalaus. After reprovisioning atManus, the task force assaultedOkinawa,Formosa, and NorthernLuzon, destroying Japanese land-based aviation, which otherwise would have threatened the landings onLeyte on 20 October.
New Orleans was present during theBattle of Leyte Gulf, which started on 23 October. On 25 October, the Fast Carrier Strike Force had steamed north, to attack the Northern Force commanded byJisaburō Ozawa.New Orleans again screened for the carriers, which sank or damaged several Japanese carriers. Task Force 34 was detached to finish off several of the crippled Japanese ships with gunfire;New Orleans and three other cruisers sank the light carrierChiyoda and the destroyerHatsuzuki.[6][7]
After replenishing atUlithi,New Orleans guarded carriers during raids throughout the Philippines in preparation for the invasion ofMindoro, then late in December, sailed for aMare Island Navy Yard overhaul, followed by training in Hawaii. She returned to Ulithi on 18 April 1945, and two days later, departed to joinTask Force 54, in the ongoinginvasion of Okinawa, arriving atOkinawa on 23 April. Here, she engaged with shore batteries and fired directly against the enemy lines. After nearly two months on station, she sailed to replenish and repair in the Philippines, and was atSubic Bay whenhostilities ceased in thePacific War.
New Orleans sailed on 28 August with a cruiser-destroyer force to ports of China andKorea. She covered theinternment of Japanese ships atTsingtao, the evacuation of liberated Alliedprisoners of war, and the landing of troops in Korea and China. She sailed on 17 November from the mouth of thePeking River (Hai He), carrying veterans homeward bound. More returning troops came aboard at theSasebo U.S. Fleet Activities base, and all were disembarked at San Francisco on 8 December. After similar duty took her toGuam in January 1946, she sailed through the Panama Canal for a 10-day visit to her namesake city. She then steamed toPhiladelphia Navy Yard, arriving on 12 March. There, she was decommissioned on 10 February 1947 and lay in reserve until struck from theNaval Vessel Register on 1 March 1959 and sold for scrapping on 22 September toBoston Metals Company,Baltimore, Maryland.
On 7 July 2025, a team of explorers led by theOcean Exploration Trust andRobert Ballard on theresearch vesselNautilus discovered the wreck of the bow sectionNew Orleans lost during the Battle of Tassafaronga in 1942 using aremotely operated underwater vehicle.[8] The bow lies at a depth of 675 m (2,214 ft) and contains details identifying it as belonging toNew Orleans, such as anchor-imprinted text reading "Navy Yard".[8]
American Defense Service Medal
American Campaign Medal
World War II Victory MedalThe 17battle starsNew Orleans received for her World War II service placed her among themost decorated U.S. naval vessels of World War II.
Members ofNew Orleans′s crew were awarded fiveNavy Crosses, 10Silver Stars, oneBronze Star, oneAir Medal, and 206Purple Hearts.
Warship Pictorial
An intensely personal and gripping memoir, a veteran of the gallant ship tells its history from rollicking peacetime days, on through 17 Pacific battles, to the hauling down of its commission pennant and its finally being broken up for scrap.
This article incorporates text from thepublic domainDictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be foundhere.First Hand accounts from the Chaplain of the New Orleans from the attack on Pearl Harbor to Bremerton after the Battle of Tassafaronga.
First Hand accounts from Bremerton after the New Orleans received a new bow till the end of hostilities in the Pacific.
A readable, well-researched popular account of the 1942 Guadalcanal naval campaign
Warship Pictorial
| International | |
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| National | |
| Other | |
