USS Astoria, a 10,000-ton Cleveland class light cruiser, was built at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Commissioned in mid-May 1944, she made a shakedown cruise in the Western Atlantic and, late in September, transited the Panama Canal en route to join the war against Japan. The new cruiser's first combat operation took place in December 1944, when she screened Task Force 38 aircraft carriers during the Mindoro invasion. Astoria continued her carrier escort duties for the next five months, as the fleet raided targets on the Asian mainland, Formosa and in Japan and supported amphibious campaigns against Luzon, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. During March-May 1945 she helped fight off intense enemy air attacks, claiming to have shot down eleven hostile aircraft. Following repairs in the Philippines during June, Astoria rejoined the carriers during their Japan raids of July and August. She also took part in surface anti-shipping sweeps off the enemy coast.
Immediately after Japan's early September surrender Astoria steamed across the Pacific to California. She operated in the West Coast and Hawaiian areas for the next three years and made a cruise in the Central Pacific between October 1946 and February 1947. Her final active service was a Far Eastern cruise that lasted from October 1948 until March 1949. Preparations for inactivation followed, with the ship decommissioning at the beginning of July 1949. She was part of the Pacific Reserve Fleet for the next two decades, initially at San Francisco and, after 1958, at San Diego. USS Astoria was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in November 1969 and sold for scrapping in January 1971.
This page features all the views we have related to USS Astoria (CL-90).
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.
In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold other views of USS Astoria (CL-90). The following list features some of these images:
The images listed below are NOT in
the Naval Historical Center's collections.
DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our
page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".
USS Astoria (CL-90) at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 25 February 1949, while en route to the West Coast for decommissioning. Port bow surface view, showing the ship alongside a pier.
USS Astoria (CL-90) refueling and transferring personnel to an oiler, while operating with Task Group 58.3 near Okinawa, 5 April 1945. Photographed from Astoria, this view shows the starboard midsection of the tanker, with a large wave breaking over it. A battleship is also present, steaming close to the tanker's port side.
Reproductions of these images should be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system for pictures not held by the Naval Historical Center. The images listed in this box are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections. DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions". |
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 26 March 2003