is it time to go yet?

 

You are wearing me out just listing everything!

 

 

 

 

 

 

USS Columbus (CA-74, later CG-12), 1945-1977

USS Columbus, a 13,600 ton Baltimore class heavy cruiser built at Quincy, Massachusetts, was commissioned in June 1945, just over two months before the end of World War II. She deployed to the Far East between January and April 1946, participating in the occupation of China and Japan. Columbus made another Western Pacific tour during the first half of 1947.

In the spring of 1948 Columbus was transferred to the Atlantic Fleet. She served as the U.S. Navy's flagship in European and Mediterranean waters from September 1948 to December 1949 and again from June 1950 to October 1951. In September and October 1952 she was flagship for Operation "Mainbrace", a major NATO exercise in the North Atlantic, and operated with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean for the rest of the year. The heavy cruiser made one more Sixth Fleet deployment, from September 1954 to January 1955.

Columbus returned to the Pacific Fleet in December 1955 and early in the new year began another Western Pacific cruise, which lasted until mid-1956. She also served in the Far East in 1957 and again in 1958, when she operated off Taiwan during the crisis over the islands of Quemoy and Matsu. In May 1959 Columbus was decommissioned for conversion to a guided missile cruiser. Stripped to the main deck over the next few months, she received the new hull number CG-12 at the end of September 1959 and spent the next three years being massively reconstructed at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington.