Two Cruisers, Two Very Different Stories

Here we see, some 70 years ago this month, two “all-gun” heavy cruisers, vessels which were once common just a decade before but a comparative rarity in August 1956, captured while showing their respective flags aboard. USS Toledo (CA 133) at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on 4 August 1956, Walter E Frost photo, City of Vancouver Archives, AM1506-S3-3-: CVA 447-8602 Sverdlov-class light cruiser Ordzhonikidze during August 1956 at Copenhagen, Denmark. Note the flag of Admiral A.G. Golovko on the top mast. Danish Military Museum image. The first U.S. Navy ship named for the city in Ohio, the Baltimore-class heavy cruiser USS Toledo (CA 133) was laid down on 13 September 1943 by the New York Shipbuilding Corp, launched on 6 May 1945, and commissioned post-VJ-Day at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on 27 October 1946. Too late for WWII, she nonetheless served two stints in Korea, mostly on the gunline, earning five battle stars for her service. She then spent a few more years on…