USS Alaska (CB-1)

USS Alaska (CB-1): The Great Ship of the Northern Territory

Commissioned on 17 June 1944, USS Alaska was the lead ship of the Alaska-class "large cruisers", a type that occupied the design space between heavy cruisers and battleships and was unlike anything else in the American fleet. At 34,253 tons full load, armed with twelve 12-inch guns in four triple turrets, and capable of 33 knots, Alaska was larger than any contemporary heavy cruiser, nearly as powerful as some battleships, and fast enough to operate with the Essex-class carriers as escort and strike ship. She was a ship class without a real analog in any other navy, not a battlecruiser in the traditional sense, not a heavy cruiser, not a fast battleship. Something the Pacific War specifically required.

The class emerged from intelligence concerns, partially accurate, that Japan was building powerful cruiser-killers that could outgun conventional American heavy cruisers. The Navy's answer was a ship that could out-shoot anything short of a true battleship. As it turned out, Japan's equivalent never fully materialized, but Alaska and sister Guam proved their value anyway as carrier escorts whose firepower and speed together made them irreplaceable in the task force role.

Alaska entered the Pacific in late 1944 and joined the fast carrier task forces driving the final campaign against Japan. She was present for the Okinawa campaign and the carrier strikes against the Japanese home islands in 1945, the operations that directly preceded Japan's surrender. Three battle stars for the Pacific's closing phase represent service in the war's most consequential final drive.

Alaska was decommissioned on 17 February 1947. Named for the vast northern territory that would become America's 49th state in 1959, already identified with American expansion into the Pacific, she was the most powerful American cruiser-type ship ever built. Tactically Acquired's USS Alaska (CB-1) collection honors the Great Land's ship and the crew who took her to war in the Pacific's final campaign.