USS Omaha (CL-4)

USS Omaha (CL-4), in New York Harbor, 10 February 1943.
History
United States
Name	Omaha
Namesake	City of Omaha, Nebraska
Ordered	29 August 1916
Awarded	26 December 1916 21 February 1919 (supplementary contract)
Builder	Todd Dry Dock and Construction Company, Tacoma, Washington
Cost	$1,541,396 (cost of hull & machinery)[1]
Laid down	6 December 1918
Launched	14 December 1920
Sponsored by	Louise Bushnell White
Completed	1 August 1921
Commissioned	24 February 1923
Decommissioned	1 November 1945
Stricken	28 November 1945
Identification	Hull symbol: CL-4 Callsign: NISL
Honors and awards	1 × battle star
Fate	Scrapped, February 1946
General characteristics (as built)[2][3]
Class and type	Omaha-class light cruiser
Displacement	7,500 long tons (7,620 t) (standard) 9,507 long tons (9,660 t) (full load)
Length	555 ft 6 in (169.32 m) oa 550 ft (170 m) pp
Beam	55 ft (17 m)
Draft	14 ft 3 in (4.34 m) (mean)
Installed power	12 × Yarrow boilers 90,000 ihp (67,000 kW) (Estimated power produced on trials)
Propulsion	4 × Westinghouse reduction geared steam turbines 4 × screws
Speed	35 kn (65 km/h; 40 mph) 33.7 kn (62.4 km/h; 38.8 mph) (Estimated speed on trials)
Crew	29 officers 429 enlisted (peacetime)
Armament	2 × twin 6 in (152 mm)/53 caliber guns 8 × single 6 in/53 caliber guns 2 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 caliber anti-aircraft guns 2 × triple 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes 2 × twin 21 in torpedo tubes 224 × mines
Armor	Belt: 3 in (76 mm) Deck: 1+1⁄2 in (38 mm) Conning Tower: 1+1⁄2 in Bulkheads: 1+1⁄2-3 in
Aircraft carried	2 × floatplanes
Aviation facilities	2 × Midships catapults crane
General characteristics (1945)[4]
Armament	2 × twin 6 in/53 caliber guns 6 × single 6 in/53 caliber guns 8 × 3 in/50 caliber anti-aircraft guns 2 × triple 21 in torpedo tubes 3 × twin 40 mm (1.57 in) Bofors guns 14 × single 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon cannons

USS Omaha (CL-4) was the lead ship of the Omaha-class light cruiser of the United States Navy. She was originally classified as a scout cruiser. She was the second US Navy ship named for the city of Omaha, Nebraska, the first being Omaha, a screw sloop launched in 1869.

Omaha spent most of her career in the Pacific. At this time her primary mission was training, and she proved to be very capable by consistently winning fleet awards in gunnery and communications. She made many ports-of-call throughout the Pacific, Mediterranean and Caribbean during her peacetime cruises, displaying the Stars and Stripes. In 1941, prior to the US entering the war, she was assigned to Neutrality Patrol in the Atlantic, based in Recife, Brazil. Nearly a month before the US entered the war she captured the German blockade runner SS Odenwald, for which her crew won an award in salvage from a federal court sitting as a court of admiralty.

After the US entered the war she continued her activities of guarding convoys in the Atlantic between South America and Western Africa. During this time she sank two German blockade runners and was responsible for rescuing many crewmen whose ships had been sunk by Axis submarines and merchant raiders. In 1944, she sailed for the Mediterranean to support Operation Dragoon, the invasion of the south of France. After the war she was quickly deemed surplus and scrapped at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in February 1946.