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Photo # NH 98166:  USS Mobile underway in the Pacific, October 1943

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Mobile (CL-63), 1943-1959

USS Mobile, a 10,000-ton Cleveland class light cruiser, was built at Newport News, Virginia. She was commissioned in late March 1943 and went to the Pacific following shakedown and training along the East Coast. Mobile first took part in combat operations during August-October 1943 raids on isolated Japanese-held islands. In November she participated in the invasions of Bougainville and Tarawa, then joined the Fast Carrier Task Forces for attacks on the Marshall Islands. She returned to the Marshalls in late January 1944 to begin two weeks' work supporting the conquest of Kwajalein Atoll.

From mid-February through May 1944, Mobile operated with the aircraft carriers during strikes through the Central Pacific and along the north shore of New Guinea. This duty continued during the Marianas campaign in June and July, and included participation in the mid-June Battle of the Philippine Sea. In early August, Mobile made a surface sweep through the area of the Bonin and Volcano Islands, helping to sink two enemy ships. She again screened carriers during the Palaus campaign in September, the subsequent raids against targets in the Western Pacific, and the October assault on Leyte. On 25 October she took part in the Battle off Cape Engaño, the northern component of the epic Battle of Leyte Gulf, using her guns to assist in sinking the enemy aircraft carrier Chiyoda and destroyer Hatsuzuki.

Mobile continued to serve with the carriers until late December 1944, as they covered the ongoing effort to recover the Philippines. Following a West Coast overhaul, she came back to the war zone in late March 1945 and spent April and May providing gunfire support to U.S. ground forces fighting on Okinawa. In late August, after Japan had agreed to surrender, the cruiser began began more than two months of assistance to occupation efforts. She made two "Magic Carpet" voyages in late 1946, transporting service personnel home from the former Pacific combat area, then went to the Puget Sound Navy Yard, at Bremerton, Washington, to prepare for inactivation. Decommissioned in May 1947, USS Mobile was part of the Pacific Reserve Fleet for the next dozen years. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in March 1959 and sold for scrapping in December of that year.

This page features selected views related to USS Mobile (CL-63).


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.

Photo #: NH 98164

USS Mobile (CL-63)


Off the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 14 April 1943.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 94KB; 740 x 615 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98165

USS Mobile (CL-63)


Off the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 14 April 1943.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 92KB; 740 x 570 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98168

USS Mobile (CL-63)


Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 18 July 1943.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 66KB; 740 x 615 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98166

USS Mobile (CL-63)


Underway in the Pacific, October 1943, probably at the time of the raid on Marcus Island.
Photographed by Lieutenant Commander Charles Kerlee, USNR.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 94KB; 740 x 610 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98167

USS Mobile (CL-63)


Underway in the Pacific, with an SBD aircraft flying overhead. Taken during combat operations in October 1943, probably at the time of the raid on Marcus Island.
Photographed by Lieutenant Commander Charles Kerlee, USNR.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 77KB; 740 x 605 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 77364

USS Mobile (CL-63)


In San Francisco Bay, California, circa late 1945.

Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1973.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 59KB; 740 x 605 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98169

USS Mobile (CL-63)


Plan view amidships, looking aft, taken from a pierside crane at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 18 July 1943.
Circles mark recent alterations to the ship.
Note: antennas for SG radar atop the fore and main masts; Mark 34 and Mark 37 gun directors, with antennas for Mark 8 and Mark 4 radars atop them; fully-equipped life rafts.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 163KB; 600 x 765 pixels

Note:
See Photo # NH 84813 for a closeup view, cropped from this photograph, of the Mark 34 gun director and antenna for Mark 8 radar.

 
Photo #: NH 98171

USS Mobile (CL-63)


Plan view amidships, looking forward, taken from a pierside crane at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 18 July 1943.
Circles mark recent alterations to the ship.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 159KB; 605 x 765 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98170

USS Mobile (CL-63)


Plan view aft, taken from a pierside crane at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 18 July 1943.
Circles mark recent alterations to the ship, in this case newly-installed life rafts and floater nets.
Note OS2U "Kingfisher" floatplanes atop the ship's catapults.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 151KB; 740 x 615 pixels

 
Photo #: 80-G-K-15825 (Color)

USS Mobile (CL-63)

View on the ship's fantail, looking across her open aircraft hangar hatch toward the starboard quarter, during the October 1943 raid on Marcus Island. Vought OS2U "Kingfisher" floatplanes are on her catapults. The plane on the starboard catapult has a small bomb under its wing.
USS Yorktown (CV-10) is in the center distance.
Photographed by Photographer's Mate Alphonso Ianelli.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 90KB; 740 x 565 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: 80-G-K-15826 (Color)

USS Mobile (CL-63)

Preparing to launch a Vought OS2U "Kingfisher" floatplane from her port catapult, during the October 1943 raid on Marcus Island.
Note the 40mm twin gun mount in the foreground, with a man in the gun tub holding a red flag.
Photographed by Photographer's Mate Alphonso Ianelli.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 96KB; 740 x 605 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: 80-G-290530

Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 1944


USS Mobile (CL-63) firing on the Japanese destroyer Hatsuzuki, during the evening of 25 October 1944, at the end of the Battle off Cape Engaño.
Photographed from USS Wichita (CA-45).

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 54KB; 740 x 610 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


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Page made 5 November 2002