USS Montpelier (CL-57)

USS Montpelier (CL-57): The Ship That Wrote Its Own History

Commissioned on 9 September 1942, USS Montpelier was a Cleveland-class light cruiser that earned thirteen battle stars across the Pacific War, and left behind one of the most detailed first-person accounts of what that experience was actually like. Seaman First Class James J. Fahey kept a secret diary aboard Montpelier throughout the Pacific campaign, a day-by-day account of life, combat, fear, and camaraderie that was published after the war as "Pacific War Diary", one of the finest enlisted man's accounts of World War II naval service ever written.

Fahey's diary, kept in violation of Navy regulations against keeping personal logs that could compromise operational security if captured, recorded the reality of Pacific combat from the enlisted man's perspective: the confusion of night engagements, the terror of kamikaze attacks, the boredom between battles, and the bond between men who depended on each other for survival. It is the human record of what Montpelier's thirteen battle stars represent in lived experience.

Montpelier entered the Pacific campaign in early 1943 and fought through the Solomon Islands operations, the Central Pacific drive, and the Philippines campaign. She was at the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay in November 1943, one of several night surface engagements where American training and radar technology was beginning to overcome the Japanese advantage in night combat. She participated in the Marianas campaign, the Philippine Sea, and Leyte Gulf.

Through 1944 and 1945, Montpelier operated with Task Force 38/58, the fast carrier task force that served as the main striking arm of the Pacific Fleet. Kamikaze attacks were a constant threat by late 1944, and her anti-aircraft batteries were in continuous action. She survived the war and was decommissioned on 24 January 1947.

Thirteen battle stars, and a written legacy that gives those stars human meaning. Tactically Acquired's USS Montpelier (CL-57) collection honors the entire crew, from the officers on the bridge to the seamen like James Fahey who wrote it all down so the world would know what they went through.