USS Canberra (CA-70)
History of the USS Canberra Cruiser
The USS Canberra (CA-70) was initially planned as the USS Pittsburgh. She was ordered for the U.S. Navy on July 1, 1940. Her keel was laid down at the Fore River Shipyard in Massachusetts on September 3, 1941. She was launched on April 19, 1943 and commissioned on October 14, 1943 under the command of Captain A.R. Early.
USS Canberra arrived at Pearl Harbor in early February 1944. Her first combat action was the invasion of Eniwetok several weeks later. She spent the following months screening carriers as they conducted raids in the Central Pacific and covered the troop landings in New Guinea.
In June, the USS Canberra took part in the assault on Saipan. She was also involved in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. The light cruiser then continued screening the carriers on raids closer to Japan and in support of troop landings in the Palau Islands and at Morotai.
As the invasion of Leyte drew closer, USS Canberra supported the carrier raids on Okinawa and Formosa. On October 13, she was struck by a torpedo that left her dead in the water and had to be towed to safety by the USS Wichita, arriving at Ulithi three days later. Receiving temporary repairs at Manus, the cruiser was able to sail home for permanent repairs at the Boston Navy Yard in Massachusetts, which kept her laid up until October 1945.
After World War II, the USS Canberra operated along the West Coast. She was decommissioned from March 7, 1947 until June 15, 1956 as she underwent conversion as a guided missile heavy cruiser, redesignated as CAG-2 on January 4, 1952. Norfolk, Virginia became her new homeport.
USS Canberra made an eight month around-the-world cruise from May to October 1960, showing the flag and demonstrating her missile capabilities. Two years later, she took part in the naval quarantine during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
During the Vietnam War, the USS Canberra had shifted her homeport to San Diego, California. She made a series of five deployments to the Vietnam War zone between 1965 and 1969. One of her crewmen, Seaman Apprentice Douglas B. Hegdahl, was swept overboard and taken as a prisoner of war (POW). Hegdahl’s ingenuity allowed him to provide information about 256 of his fellow POWs as well as details of North Vietnamese atrocities when he was granted early release. The cruiser would later move on to support U.S. forces at Hue during the TET offensive.
The USS Canberra reverted to her original designation, CA-70, on May 1, 1968. After one final Vietnam deployment, she was decommissioned on February 2, 1970. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on July 31, 1978 and sold for scrap on July 31, 1980. The cruiser earned seven battle stars for her service in World War II.
The use of asbestos was common in shipbuilding components for much of the 20th Century because of its resistance to heat, fire, water and corrosion. Because of their asbestos exposure onboard ship and in the shipyards, seaman, shipyard workers and longshoreman are at risk for developing asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma.
Sources include:
Asbestos and Ship-Building: Fatal Consequences, by John Hedley-Whyte and Debra R Milamed
