USS Helena (CA-75)

USS Helena (CA-75): Carrying a Lost Name Forward

Commissioned on 4 September 1945, USS Helena CA-75 was a Baltimore-class heavy cruiser that carries a story rooted in sacrifice. Originally named Des Moines before commissioning, she was renamed Helena to honor USS Helena CL-50, the Brooklyn-class light cruiser lost at the Battle of Kula Gulf on 6 July 1943 with the loss of 168 men. The renaming carried forward a name that had fought hard in the Solomons and gone down fighting, ensuring it would continue to represent American naval service.

Helena CA-75 commissioned into the postwar Navy and participated in occupation duties in the western Pacific. She earned four battle stars, awarded for ships commissioned in the war's final phase participating in operations that met the threshold.

When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, Helena served in Korean waters providing the naval gunfire support that UN ground forces depended on throughout the conflict. The gun cruiser proved its continued value in Korea: 8-inch shells reaching inland targets that other fire support systems couldn't touch, available on call at any hour regardless of weather. Korean naval operations were unglamorous compared to the carrier battles of the Pacific War, but they were operationally essential to the UN's ability to hold and stabilize the front.

Helena was decommissioned on 29 June 1963. She carried the name of a ship lost at Kula Gulf and brought it forward into two more decades of American naval service. Tactically Acquired's USS Helena (CA-75) collection honors both ships that bore the name, and the men who served each of them.