USS Tuscaloosa (CL/CA-37) was a 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, the ship fared better compared to her six sister ships, three of which were sunk and the other three heavily damaged.
Tuscaloosa was decommissioned in early 1946 and scrapped in 1959.
Construction and commissioning The keel was laid down on 3 September 1931 at Camden, New Jersey, by the New York Shipbuilding Co., and the hull was 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.
Inter-war period 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.
The heavy cruiser soon shaped a course for the west coast. After a stop at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, she transited the Panama Canal on 7–8 April and then steamed north to San Diego, where she joined Cruiser Division 6 (CruDiv 6) in time to participate in Fleet Problem XVI staged in May in the northern Pacific off the coast of Alaska and in waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. This operation was divided into five distinct phases which might be aspects of some real naval campaign of the future in which the United States would take the strategic offensive.
Tuscaloosa subsequently was based at San Pedro, California, whence she conducted routine exercises and local operations with CruDiv 6. In the spring of 1936, the heavy cruiser participated in Fleet Problem XVII, taking place off the west coast of the United States, Central America, and the Panama Canal Zone. The five phase exercise was devoted to preparing the fleet for antisubmarine operations, testing communications systems, and training of aircraft patrol squadrons for extended fleet operations.
In May 1937, the Fleet again exercised in Alaskan waters and in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands and Midway, practicing the tactics of seizing advanced base sites - a technique later to be polished to a high degree into close support and amphibious warfare doctrines. Tuscaloosa, as part of the "augmented" Scouting Force, "battled" the Battle Force that spring.
In April and May 1938, the heavy cruiser participated in Fleet Problem XIX, which was conducted in the vicinity of Hawaii.
Tuscaloosa departed San Diego on 3 January 1939 and proceeded, via the Panama Canal, to the Caribbean. She took part in Fleet Problem XX, in the Atlantic to the east of the Lesser Antilles, before undergoing a brief refit at the Norfolk Navy Yard. She then joined and for a goodwill tour of South American ports. From 8 April to 10 May, the division—under the command of Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel—visited Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires before transiting the storm-tossed Strait of Magellan. The three cruisers drove their bows deep into heavy seas and battled gale-force winds as they made the difficult passage on 14–15 May. The division then sailed up the west coast of South America, visiting Valparaíso, Chile, and Callao, Peru, before transiting the Panama Canal and returning to Norfolk, where she arrived on 6 June.
Tuscaloosa remained off the east coast into the summer of 1939. In August, she carried President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Campobello Island, New Brunswick. En route, off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the Commander in Chief witnessed salvage operations in progress on the sunken which had stayed down after a test dive on 24 May. On 24 August, following visits to Campobello and several ports in Newfoundland, President Roosevelt disembarked at Sandy Hook on the coast of New Jersey.
Before Pearl Harbor
September 1939 – November 1939 The outbreak of World War II a week later (1 September 1939) found Tuscaloosa at NOB Norfolk. On the 5th, President Roosevelt established the Neutrality Patrol; and, the next day, the cruiser departed for her first patrol, which kept her at sea until she returned to her home port on the 11th. Three days later, the heavy cruiser departed Norfolk and spent the remainder of September and most of October engaged in gunnery training and conducting exercises out of Guantanamo Bay and San Juan, Puerto Rico. She departed the Caribbean on 27 October, bound for Hampton Roads, and arrived at Norfolk on 5 November and, but for gunnery exercises off the Virginia Capes from 13 to 15 November, remained in the Hampton Roads areas until mid-December.
Meanwhile, the Neutrality Patrol found itself keeping track of German merchantmen in waters of the western hemisphere. At the outbreak of hostilities, there had been some 85 German ships near the Americas. One of those, the North German (Norddeutsche) Lloyd (NDL) liner —the 13th largest steamship in the world—had been on a tourist cruise when war caught her in the West Indies. She put into Veracruz, Mexico, where she fueled and prepared to make a break for home.
December 1939 The liner departed Veracruz on 14 December 1939 but soon thereafter was escorted by seven destroyers, including the . Captain Willibald Dahne, the master of the Columbus, was careful to keep his ship within the neutrality zone until she was abreast of the Delaware capes. He then headed east. The Tuscaloosa, meanwhile, had been ordered out to participate. On 16 December, two days after Columbus departed Veracruz, Tuscaloosa stood out of Norfolk, bound for her patrol station. She soon relieved and —two flushdeckers— at 0600 on 18 December. On 19 December, the liner spotted the British destroyer , who sent a warning shot and then a flash signal, "You are captured."Giese, O., 1994, Shooting the War, Annapolis: United States Naval Institute,
For Captain Dahne, there remained only one alternative. After having carefully planned for that eventuality, he scuttled his ship. All but two of his crew of 578 succeeded in going over the side and manning the lifeboats. The Hyperion clearly had no room for all of the Germans. The Tuscaloosa radioed the Hyperion, "Our orders, either you take all or none. We are warning, stay away from the boats. If you ram or sink one, we will have to commence firing at you."
From his motor launch, Captain Dahne kept the lifeboats together while the Tuscaloosa embarked the 576 men, boys and women. He then followed them to safety on board the cruiser which provided hospitality for the shipwrecked mariners who were glad to be on board an American cruiser as rescued seamen and not in a British warship as prisoners-of-war. The bulk of the survivors were put up in the cruiser's seaplane hangar that had been cleared out to facilitate its use as a large berthing area; and the women were berthed in sick bay.
Tuscaloosa took the survivors to New York—the only port equipped to handle such a large and sudden influx of aliens—and disembarked them at Ellis Island between 1610 and 1730 on 20 December for officials to process. Ultimately, most of Columbus officers and men returned, via the Pacific, to their native land. Meanwhile, Tuscaloosa departed New York on the 21st and arrived at Norfolk the following day.
January 1940 – November 1940 The heavy cruiser remained at Norfolk into the New Year, 1940, and departed her home port on 11 January bound for the West Indies. On the voyage to the Caribbean, she was accompanied by her sister ship San Francisco; Battleship Division 5—less and , the prototype high-speed transport. Tuscaloosa and her consorts arrived at Culebra on the 16th, and two days later shifted to Guantánamo Bay. There, she participated in fleet exercises from the 18th to the 27th. Departing Guantánamo on the latter day, the Tuscaloosa returned to Norfolk on 29 January and entered the navy yard there for special alterations to fit her out for service as presidential flagship.
Tuscaloosa departed from the Norfolk Navy Yard on 2 February, and then she moored at NOB Norfolk. Two days later, she got under way for Cuba, arriving at Guantánamo on the 7th, only to steam out three days later for Pensacola, Florida, in company with . The two ships exercised en route and arrived at Pensacola on the 14th.
On the next day, Tuscaloosa embarked President Roosevelt and his guests and departed in company with and Lang for a cruise to Panama and the west coast of Central America. The voyage gave the President an opportunity to discuss Pan American defense with leaders of Latin American nations. Steaming to the Pacific coast of Central America, Roosevelt inspected the Pacific defenses of the Panama Canal. In addition, he fished regularly at a variety of locations but, as he later recounted, caught "damned few fish." On the return passage through the canal, on 27 February, Roosevelt conferred with United States Navy, Army, and Air Corps officers to discuss the defense of the vital passage.
After disembarking the President at Pensacola, Tuscaloosa proceeded north to Norfolk and from thence to the New York Navy Yard for a three-month overhaul. During her sojourn at Brooklyn, Hitler's legions conquered France in June 1940 and won mastery of continental Europe. Soon thereafter, Tuscaloosa returned to the neutrality patrol and conducted monotonous but intensive patrols in the Caribbean and Bermuda areas through the summer and fall months of 1940.
December 1940 – April 1941 On 3 December 1940 at Miami, President Roosevelt embarked in Tuscaloosa for the third time for a cruise to inspect the base sites obtained from Britain in the recently negotiated "destroyers for bases" deal. In that transaction, the United States had traded 50 old flush-deck destroyers for 99-year leases on bases in the western hemisphere. Ports of call included Kingston, Jamaica; Santa Lucia, Antigua; and the Bahamas. Roosevelt fished and entertained British colonial officials—including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor—on board the cruiser.
While the President cruised in Tuscaloosa, American officials in Washington wrestled with the problem of extending aid to Britain. Having barely weathered the disastrous campaign in France in the spring and the Battle of Britain in the summer, the United Kingdom desperately needed materiel. American production could meet Britain's need, but American neutrality law limiting the purchase of arms by belligerents to "cash-and-carry" transactions was about to become a major obstacle, for British coffers were almost empty. While pondering Britain's plight as he luxuriated in Tuscaloosa, the President hit upon the idea of the Lend-Lease program to aid the embattled British.