USS Birmingham (hull number: CL-62) was a light cruiser of the United States Navy, which were built during World War II. The class was designed as a development of the earlier s, the size of which had been limited by the First London Naval Treaty. The start of the war led to the dissolution of the treaty system, but the dramatic need for new vessels precluded a new design, so the Clevelands used the same hull as their predecessors but were significantly heavier. The Clevelands carried a main battery of twelve guns in four three-gun turrets, along with a secondary armament of twelve dual-purpose guns. They had a top speed of .
She was laid down at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company of Newport News, Virginia, on 17 February 1941 and launched on 20 March 1942 by Mrs. Cooper Green, wife of the president of the Birmingham City Commission. She was commissioned on 29 January 1943, Captain John Wilkes in command. Birmingham earned eight battle stars, receiving heavy damage on at least three occasions.
Design
The Cleveland-class light cruisers traced their origin to design work done in the late 1930s; at the time, light cruiser displacement was limited to by the Second London Naval Treaty. Following the start of World War II in September 1939, Britain announced it would suspend the treaty for the duration of the conflict, a decision the US Navy quickly followed. Though still neutral, the United States recognized that war was likely and the urgent need for additional ships ruled out an entirely new design, so the Clevelands were a close development of the earlier s, the chief difference being the substitution of a two-gun dual-purpose gun mount for one of the main battery gun turrets.
Birmingham was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of . Her standard displacement amounted to and increased to at full load. The ship was powered by four General Electric steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, using steam provided by four oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Rated at , the turbines were intended to give a top speed of . Her crew numbered 1285 officers and enlisted men.
The ship was armed with a main battery of twelve 6 in /47-caliber Mark 16 guns in four 3-gun turrets on the centerline. Two were placed forward in a superfiring pair; the other two turrets were placed aft of the superstructure in another superfiring pair. The secondary battery consisted of twelve /38-caliber dual-purpose guns mounted in twin turrets. Two of these were placed on the centerline, one directly behind the forward main turrets and the other just forward of the aft turrets. Two more were placed abreast of the conning tower and the other pair on either side of the aft superstructure. Anti-aircraft defense consisted of twenty-eight Bofors guns in four quadruple and six double mounts and twenty-one Oerlikon guns in single mounts.
The ship's belt armor ranged in thickness from , with the thicker section amidships where it protected the ammunition magazines and propulsion machinery spaces. Her deck armor was thick. The main battery turrets were protected with faces and sides and tops, and they were supported by barbettes 6 inches thick. Birminghams conning tower had 5-inch sides.
Service history Birmingham was laid down at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company at Newport News, Virginia on 17 February 1941. The completed hull was launched on 20 March 1942. Fitting-out work was completed less than a year later, by which time she had been moved to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, and she was commissioned there on 29 January 1943. Captain John E. Wilkes served as the ship's first commander. On 20 February, Birmingham embarked on her shakedown cruise in the Chesapeake Bay, which also included gunnery tests to confirm the structural integrity of her main battery turrets, practice launching and recovering her seaplanes, and shooting practice for her gun crews. On 19 March, the ship sailed for Annapolis, Maryland, to be inspected, before returning to Norfolk on 3 April for repairs. Another round of initial training followed in the Chesapeake from 23 April, including night firing practice, refueling at sea, and fighter director exercises. In late May, she returned to Norfolk for additional repairs, before departing on 8 June for the Mediterranean Sea to join forces then engaged in the Mediterranean Theater.
World War II
European Theater Birmingham reached Mers El Kébir in French Algeria on 22 June, where she made preparations to join the invasion fleet that was to conduct Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. She was assigned to Task Group (TG) 86.1, along with the light cruiser and the destroyers and , which sortied on 29 June. The ships escorted part of the invasion force, which arrived off the landing beaches on the morning of 9 July. TG 86.1 helped guide the landing ships to their designated beaches, after which Birmingham shifted to shore bombardment to cover their approach. She launched two of her seaplanes to help spot the fall of shot and search for Axis artillery batteries.
During operations off the invasion beaches, Birmingham was escorted by Ludlow and the destroyer . Poor visibility hampered the cruiser's gunners, and her aircraft were repeatedly engaged by friendly forces that mistook them for hostile planes. At 07:15, one of the aircraft returned to Birmingham, having been badly damaged by friendly ground fire and a German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter, and half an hour later, the second seaplane withdrew as well, having nearly been shot down by a pair of British Bell P-39 Airacobra fighters. At 09:18, Birmingham checked her fire, as Allied ground forces had achieved their initial objectives by that time. The ship continued to operate off the Sicilian coast for the next nine days, providing fire support to ground forces as they fought their way inland, and protecting minesweepers as they cleared Axis mines from the area.
Birmingham left the waters off Sicily on 21 July to refuel at Bizerte in French Tunisia; she thereafter sailed to Algiers in French Algeria before moving on to Mers El Kébir. On 27 July, she departed for the United States, arriving in Norfolk on 8 August, where she underwent repairs that lasted for ten days. From there, she sailed to join the forces engaged with Japan in the Pacific Ocean. She passed through the Panama Canal on 22 August and reached Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on 5 September.
Pacific Theater After arriving in Pearl Harbor, Birmingham was assigned to TG 15.1 as part of the escort for the aircraft carrier and the light carriers and . The unit sortied on 11 September to launch a raid on Japanese positions at Tarawa and Makin, returning to Pearl Harbor on 23 September. After refueling and rearming, they sortied again on 29 September to attack Wake Island. Birmingham was detached from the carrier group on 5 October to carry out shore bombardments of the island, targeting coastal batteries and storage dumps. Her spotter aircraft came under attack by a Mitsubishi A6M Zero, but the spotter was only hit by two bullets from the Zero before it escaped. TG 15.1 left the area on 6 October and arrived back in Pearl Harbor five days later.
Solomon Islands operations
Birmingham was reassigned to the Solomon Islands campaign, and she got underway on 21 October to join the naval forces operating there. She reached Espiritu Santo on 4 November, and the next day joined the escort for a convoy of six transport ships headed to Bougainville; two other light cruisers and four destroyers comprised the rest of the escort group. The group safely arrived in Empress Augusta Bay on the morning of 8 November and while they were unloading their cargoes, Birmingham and the other escorts patrolled to the southwest of the bay. Throughout the afternoon and early evening, Birmingham and her sister ship detected a total of thirteen Japanese aircraft in the distance, but none of them attacked the Allied flotilla during this period. At around 18:30, a Japanese Mitsubishi G4M medium bomber closed with the American ships. At the same time, the air-search radars on the American cruisers picked up a large attack force incoming, at a distance of about .
Birmingham and the other two cruisers opened fire with their main batteries at 19:11, at a range of , to try to disrupt the incoming aerial attack. As the Japanese aircraft closed in the darkness, the American ships launched flares to illuminate the planes. Birmingham engaged an Aichi D3A Val that was approaching the ship and inflicted fatal damage with her 20 mm and 40 mm guns, though not before the Val released its bomb. It skipped on the water and struck Birminghams hull on the starboard quarter; the explosion tore a hole in the hull that was wide and destroyed her aircraft hangar. Almost immediately after, another aircraft hit Birmingham with a torpedo on her port bow, blowing a hole and causing significant damage to the hull structure. Two of her fuel oil storage compartments were also flooded. The ship's damage control teams quickly moved to contain the flooding and suppress fires from both hits, but a second Val made an attack run at Birmingham. The anti-aircraft gunners destroyed the plane as it dove on Birmingham, but its bomb nevertheless struck turret #4. The mount and all three gun barrels were damaged in the blast. In total, the three attacks killed two men and wounded another thirty-two.
Birmingham was still able to steam at and maintain her position in the formation. Further Japanese attacks occurred throughout the night, but the ships' 5-inch guns kept the aircraft at bay. At 19:58, Birmingham shot down a G4M that was dropping flares over the formation, and later that night her 5-inch guns destroyed another G4M at a range of . Birmingham withdrew without further damage, and reached the central Solomons by the morning; from there, the ships sailed on to Florida Island on 10 November. There, the ship received temporary repairs to shore up the damaged bulkheads. A vent for the flooded compartments in the bow was also created to reduce pressure on the forward bulkheads, and while steaming back to the United States, it created periodic geysers of water, which earned the ship the nickname "Old Faithful". Birmingham left Florida on 16 November for Espiritu Santo, though she stayed there only briefly before continuing on to Hawaii, which she reached on 1 December.
Repairs and training The ship was dry docked in Pearl Harbor for repairs to her hull, and on 18 December she departed for the Mare Island Navy Yard in San Francisco, California, arriving there four days later. There, she underwent permanent repairs, including six new 6-inch guns and new aircraft catapults. On 7 February 1944, while she was being moved in the harbor, Birmingham accidentally collided with the merchant vessel , and had her bow damaged again. Further repairs were necessitated, which lasted about a week. She thereafter conducted a short shakedown cruise before sailing from Mare Island on 18 February to return to Pearl Harbor, arriving there on 23 February. The ship thereafter took part in training exercises off Kahoolawe in the Hawaiian islands before leaving Hawaii on 5 March. She sailed next to the Ellice Islands, refueling at Funafuti on 10 March, before continuing on to the Solomons. She arrived in Purvis Bay there four days later, where she was assigned to Task Group 53.1.