USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37)

USS Tuscaloosa (CA 37), at sea on 23 August 1935.
History
United States
Name:	Tuscaloosa
Namesake:	City of Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Ordered:	13 February 1929
Awarded:	3 March 1931
Builder:	Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York
Cost:	$10,450,000 (limit of price)
Laid down:	3 September 1931
Launched:	15 November 1933
Sponsored by:	Mrs. Thomas Lee McCann
Commissioned:	17 August 1934
Decommissioned:	13 February 1946
Struck:	1 March 1959
Identification:	Hull symbol:CA-37 Code letters:NAJF
Honors and awards:	7 × battle stars
Fate:	Sold for scrap 25 June 1959
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type:	New Orleans-class cruiser
Displacement:	9,975 long tons (10,135 t) (standard)
Length:	588 ft (179 m) oa 574 ft (175 m) pp
Beam:	61 ft 9 in (18.82 m)
Draft:	19 ft 5 in (5.92 m) (mean) 23 ft 6 in (7.16 m) (max)
Installed power:	8 × Babcock & Wilcox boilers 107,000 shp (80,000 kW)
Propulsion:	4 × Parsons reduction steam turbines 4 × screws
Speed:	32.7 kn (37.6 mph; 60.6 km/h)
Capacity:	Fuel oil: 1,650 tons
Complement:	103 officers 763 enlisted
Armament:	9 × 8 in (200 mm)/55 caliber guns (3x3) 8 × 5 in (130 mm)/25 caliber anti-aircraft guns 2 × 3-pounder47 mm (1.9 in) saluting guns 8 × caliber 0.50 in (13 mm) machine guns
Armor:	Belt: 3–5 in (76–127 mm) Deck: 1 1⁄4–2 1⁄4 in (32–57 mm) Barbettes: 5 in (130 mm) Turrets: 1 1⁄2–8 in (38–203 mm) Conning Tower: 5 in (130 mm)
Aircraft carried:	4 × floatplanes
Aviation facilities:	2 × Amidship catapults
General characteristics (1945)
Armament:	9 × 8 in (200 mm)/55 caliber guns (3x3) 8 × 5 in (130 mm)/25 caliber anti-aircraft guns 2 × 3-pounder47 mm (1.9 in) saluting guns 6 × quad 40 mm (1.6 in) Bofors anti-aircraft guns 28 × single 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon anti-aircraft cannons
Aviation facilities:	1 × Amidship catapult

USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) was a New Orleans-class cruiser of the U.S. Navy. Commissioned in 1934, she spent most of her career in the Atlantic and Caribbean, participating in several European wartime operations. In early 1945, she transferred to the Pacific and assisted in shore bombardment of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. She earned 7 battle stars for her service in World War II. Never damaged in battle, she led a charmed life compared to her six sister ships, three of which were sunk and the other three heavily damaged.

She was decommissioned in early 1946 and scrapped in 1959.

She was laid down on 3 September 1931 at Camden, New Jersey, by the New York Shipbuilding Co., launched on 15 November 1933, sponsored by Mrs. Jeanette McCann, the wife of Lieutenant Thomas L. McCann and the niece of William Bacon Oliver, the Representative of Alabama's 6th congressional district). She was commissioned on 17 August 1934, Captain John N. Ferguson in command.

The New Orleans-class cruisers were the last U.S. cruisers built to the specifications and standards of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. Such ships, with a limit of 10,000 tons standard displacement and 8-inch caliber main guns may be referred to as "treaty cruisers." Originally classified a light cruiser before she was laid down, because of her thin armor, she was reclassified a heavy cruiser, because of her 8-inch guns. The term "heavy cruiser" was not defined until the London Naval Treaty in 1930.

Tuscaloosa devoted the autumn to a shakedown cruise which took her to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo, before she returned to the New York Navy Yard shortly before Christmas. She then underwent post-shakedown repairs which kept her in the yard into March 1935.