To the Frontiers of the World!

With today being today, you knew this was coming. I give you the Baltimore-class heavy cruiser USS Columbus (CA-74) at New York Harbor for Columbus Day 1945. At first, you could almost mistake her for a slimmed-down Iowa-class battleship. That was easy to do with a ship that had a full-load displacement of some 17,000 tons, ran nearly 700 feet long, had a very similar 3+3+3 main gun layout, two funnels, and up to eight inches of armor. Note her abeam name stencil, applied for the event. NH 105562 Same date/location as above. NH 81121 Too late to see combat in WWII, Columbus was still a “war baby,” commissioned on 8 June 1945. Joining the Pacific Fleet five months after VJ Day, she reached the old German China colony of Tsingtao on 13 January 1946 for occupation duty, serving off and on as the cruiser flagship in Chinese waters through June 1947. After transferring to the Atlantic Fleet in 1948, she often served as the 6th Fleet’s flagship, as noted above. I mean, why wouldn’t she? She…