The Alaska-class were six large cruisers ordered before World War II for the United States Navy (USN), of which only two were completed and saw service late in the war. The USN designation for ships of the class was "large cruiser" (assigned the hull symbol of "CB"), a designation unique to the Alaska-class, and the majority of leading reference works refer to them as such. However, various other works have alternately described these ships as battlecruisers despite the USN having never classified them as such, and having actively discouraged the use of the term in describing the class. The Alaskas were all named after territories or insular areas of the United States, signifying their intermediate status between larger battleships (which were mostly named after states) and smaller heavy and light cruisers (which were named after cities).
The idea for a large cruiser class originated in the early 1930s when the USN sought to counter the "pocket battleships" being launched by Germany. Planning for ships that eventually evolved into the Alaska-class began in the late 1930s after the deployment of Germany's s and rumors that Japan was constructing a new large cruiser class, the B-65 "super cruiser."Worth, 305. To serve as "cruiser-killers" capable of seeking out and destroying these post-treaty heavy cruisers, the class was given large guns of a new and expensive design, limited armor protection against 12-inch shells, and machinery capable of speeds of about .
Of the six planned, and were the only two to be commissioned; a third, Hawaii, was close to completion at the war's end and had its construction suspended on 16 April 1947, while the remaining three were cancelled. Alaska and Guam served with the USN for the last year of World War II as bombardment ships and fast carrier escorts. They were decommissioned in 1947 after spending only 32 and 29 months in service, respectively.
Background Heavy cruiser development formalized between World War I and World War II due to the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty and successor treaties and conferences, where the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy agreed to limit heavy cruisers to 10,000 tons displacement with 8-inch main armament. Up until the Alaska class, US cruisers designed between the wars followed this pattern.Bauer and Roberts, 139.
The initial impetus for the Alaska design came from the deployments of Germany's so-called pocket battleships in the early 1930s. Though no actions were immediately taken, these thoughts were revived in the late 1930s when intelligence reports indicated Japan was planning or building "super cruisers" of the B-65 class that would be much more powerful than the current US heavy cruisers.Scarpaci, 17. The navy responded in 1938 when the General Board asked the Bureau of Construction and Repair to conduct a "comprehensive study of all types of naval vessels for consideration for a new and expanded building program".Dulin and Garzke, 189. The US president at the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, may have taken a lead role in the development of the class with his desire to have a counter to raiding abilities of Japanese cruisers and German pocket battleships.Dulin and Garzke, 24 and 179. While these claims are difficult to verify,Morison and Polmar, 85. others have speculated that their design was "politically motivated"Dulin and Garzke 267. rather than strategic.
Design One historian described the design process of the Alaska class as "torturous" due to the numerous changes and modifications made to the ship's layouts by numerous departments and individuals. Indeed, there were at least nine different layouts,Dulin and Garzke, 179–183. ranging from 6,000-ton anti-aircraft cruisers to "overgrown" heavy cruisers and a 38,000-ton mini-battleship that would have been armed with twelve 12-inch and sixteen 5-inch guns.Dulin and Garzke, 179. The General Board, in an attempt to keep the displacement under 25,000 tons, allowed the designs to offer only limited underwater protection such that they were vulnerable, by comparison with a battleship, to torpedoes and to shells that fell short of the ship.Dulin and Garzke, 183. The final design was a scaled-up that had the same machinery as the s. This ship combined a main armament of nine 12-inch guns with protection against 10-inch gunfire into a hull that was capable of .
The Alaskas were officially funded in September 1940 along with a plethora of other ships as a part of the Two-Ocean Navy Act.Rohwer, 40. Their role had been altered slightly: in addition to their surface-to-surface role, they were planned to protect carrier groups. This carrier escort capability was favored by Admiral King. Because of their bigger guns, greater size and increased speed, they would be more valuable in this role than heavy cruisers, and would provide insurance against reports that Japan was building super cruisers more powerful than the American heavy cruisers. The escort concept would also free the few existing heavy cruisers for scouting (their original purpose).
Possible conversion to aircraft carriers
Yet another drastic change was considered during the "carrier panic" in late 1941, when the US Navy realized that they needed more aircraft carriers as quickly as possible. Many hulls currently under construction were considered for conversion into carriers. At different times, they considered some or all of the light cruisers, the heavy cruisers, the Alaska class, and even one of the s; in the end, they chose the Clevelands,Friedman, 190. resulting in the conversion of nine ships under construction at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard as the light aircraft carriers comprising the .
A conversion of the Alaska cruisers to carriers was "particularly attractive" because of the many similarities between the design of the s and the Alaska class, including the same machinery.Fitzsimons, Volume 1, 58. However, when Alaska cruisers were compared to the Essex carriers, converted cruisers would have had a shorter flight deck (so they could carry only 90% of the aircraft), would have been lower in the water, and could travel less at . In addition, the large cruiser design did not include the extensive underwater protections found in normal carriers due to the armor weight devoted to counter shell fire. Lastly, an Alaska conversion could not satisfy the navy's goal of having new aircraft carriers quickly, as the work needed to modify the ships into carriers would entail long delays. With this in mind, all planning to convert the Alaskas was abandoned on 7 January 1942.Friedman, 191.
Construction
Of the six Alaska-class cruisers that were planned, only three were laid down. The first two, and , were completed by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation. Construction of , the third, was suspended on 16 April 1947 when she was 84% complete. The last three, Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Samoa, were delayed since all available materials and slipways were allocated to higher priority ships, such as aircraft carriers, destroyers, and submarines. Construction had still not begun when steel shortagesFitzsimons, Volume 1, 59. and a realization that these "cruiser-killers" had no more cruisers to hunt—as the fleets of Japanese cruisers had already been defeated by aircraft and submarines—made the ships "white elephants". As a result, construction of the last three members of the class never began, and they were officially cancelled on 24 June 1943.
Service history
and served with the U.S. Navy during the last year of World War II, forming Cruiser Division 16 commanded by Rear Admiral Francis S. Low, USN. Similar to the fast battleships, their firepower was useful in shore bombardment, and their speed made them excellent fast carrier escorts, a role for which the two had become celebrated within the fleet by the war's end. Both Alaska and Guam protected when she was on her way to be repaired in Guam after being hit by two Japanese bombs. Afterward, Alaska supported the landings on Okinawa, while Guam went to San Pedro Bay to become the leader of a new task force, Cruiser Task Force 95, under the overall command of Vice Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf. Guam, joined by Alaska, four light cruisers, and nine destroyers, led the task force into the East China and Yellow Seas to conduct raids upon shipping; however, they encountered only Chinese junks. Subsequently, both ships returned to the United States in mid-December 1945, and they were decommissioned and "mothballed" in 1947, after having spent 32 months (Alaska) and 29 months (Guam) in service.
After the war, both ships served as part of Task Force 71, the designation for the U.S. Seventh Fleet's North China Naval Force. Its mission was to support the American occupation of southern Korea. This included executing various show-the-flag operations along the western coast of Korea as well as in the Bohai Sea. These naval demonstrations preceded Operation Chromite, the amphibious landing of U.S. Army ground forces at Incheon, Korea, on 10 September 1950.Bartow. From Hot War to Cold, pp. 129–130.
In 1958, the Bureau of Ships prepared two feasibility studies to explore whether Alaska and Guam could be suitably converted into guided-missile cruisers. The first study involved removing all of the guns in favor of four different missile systems. At $160 million, the cost of this proposed removal was seen as prohibitive, so a second study was initiated. The study left the forward batteries (the two 12-inch triple turrets and three of the 5-inch dual turrets) unchanged, and added a reduced version of the first plan on the stern of the ship. Even though the proposals would have cost approximately half as much as the first study's plan ($82 million), it was still seen as too expensive.Dulin and Garzke 187. As a result, both ships were stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 June 1960. Alaska was sold for scrap on 30 June 1960, and Guam on 24 May 1961. The still-incomplete was considered for a conversion to be the Navy's first guided-missile cruiser; this thought lasted until 26 February 1952, when a different conversion to a "large command ship" was contemplated. In anticipation of the conversion, her classification was changed to CBC-1. This would have made her a "larger sister" to , but a year and a half later (9 October 1954) she was re-designated CB-3. Hawaii was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 9 June 1958 and was sold for scrap in 1959.
"Large cruisers" or "battlecruisers"
The Alaska class, along with the Dutch Design 1047 battlecruiser and the Japanese Design B-65 cruiser, were specifically to counter the heavy cruisers being built by their naval rivals. All three have been described as "super cruisers", "large cruisers" or even "unrestricted cruisers", with some (up to Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II itself) advocating that they even be considered as battlecruisers. However, they were never officially classified as capital ships, as that designation was reserved for true battlecruisers and battleships.Chesneau, p. 388; Garzke & Dulin, p. 86; Friedman 1984, p. 288; McLaughlin 2006, p. 104 Early in its development, the class used the US battlecruiser designation CC, which had been planned for the . However, the designation was changed to CB to reflect their new status, "large cruiser", and the practice of referring to them as battlecruisers was officially discouraged. The U.S. Navy then named the individual vessels after U.S. territories, rather than states (as was the tradition with battleships) or cities (for which cruisers were traditionally named), to symbolize the belief that these ships were supposed to play an intermediate role between cruisers and battleships.