USS Trenton (CL-11)
History of the USS Trenton Cruiser
The USS Trenton (CL-11) was ordered for the U.S. Navy after World War I. Her keel was laid down by William Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 18, 1920. She was launched on April 16, 1923 and commissioned on April 19, 1924 under the command of Captain Edward C. Kalbfus.
USS Trenton conducted her shakedown cruise in the Mediterranean. On August 25, 1924, she took the remains of Vice Consul Robert Imbrie onboard and saluted him with her guns. She returned home to the Washington Navy Yard at the end of September.
While conducting gunnery drills off Norfolk, Virginia in October, there was an explosion of powder bags in her forward turret that killed or injured everyone in the gun crew. Ensign Henry Clay Dexler and Boatswain’s Mate George Cholister were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for their attempts to contain the damage.
Over the next several years, the USS Trenton participated in exercises, the annual Fleet Problems, and cruises with the Scouting Fleet that brought her to the South Pacific and South America. She left the Scouting Fleet in March 1928 to join the Battle Fleet off California, in Hawaii, in the Caribbean, and in the Western Pacific with the Asiatic Fleet.
USS Trenton became the flagship of the Battle Force cruisers in 1933 until she was transferred to the Atlantic with the Special Service Squadron in September 1934. She headed to Mare Island Navy Yard in California in January 1936 before she rejoined the Battle Force. In May 1939, the cruiser was back in the Atlantic, and she helped evacuate American citizens during the Spanish Civil War. She remained in the area until July 1940, carrying home with her Luxembourg’s royal family.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the USS Trenton was moored at Balboa with Cruiser Division 3. She spent the beginning of 1942 escorting convoys to Bora Bora. After that, the next two years kept her busy patrolling the waters along the western coast of South America between the Panama Canal Zone and the Strait of Magellan.
In July 1944, USS Trenton sailed north to the Aleutian Islands via San Francisco, California. She then moved on to sweep the Kuril Islands as a diversion during the invasion of Leyte in October. The cruiser bombarded Paramushiru Island on January 3, 1945 before returning to patrol the waters of Alaska.
With the exception of a few shore bombardment missions, the USS Trenton spent the remainder of the war patrolling the Aleutian Islands and sweeping the Kurils. She was decommissioned on December 20, 1945, struck from the Naval Vessel Register on January 21, 1946, and sold for scrap on December 29, 1946. The cruiser earned one battle star 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
