USS Quincy (CA-39)

USS Quincy (CA-39): One of Four Lost at Savo Island

Commissioned on 9 June 1936, USS Quincy was the seventh New Orleans-class heavy cruiser, a capable, modern fighting ship that never had the chance to prove her full worth. She earned one battle star in a short but active combat career and went to the bottom of Iron Bottom Sound on 9 August 1942 in the worst single naval defeat in American history.

Quincy was in the Atlantic when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and she transited to the Pacific in 1942 as the United States began its counteroffensive in the South Pacific. By August 1942, she was assigned to protect the Allied landing forces at Guadalcanal and Tulagi, a mission that put her directly in the path of Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa's cruiser force.

The Battle of Savo Island on the night of 8–9 August 1942 was a catastrophe. Mikawa led a column of seven cruisers and one destroyer through the darkness with near-perfect tactical execution, achieving complete surprise against the Allied screening force. His force struck the southern group of Allied ships, HMAS Canberra and USS Chicago, and then turned northwest to hit the northern group: Vincennes, Quincy, and Astoria.

Quincy was caught in a crossfire, illuminated by Japanese searchlights and raked by gunfire from multiple directions. She fought back, her guns blazing even as hits accumulated throughout her length, but the damage was catastrophic and overwhelming. Multiple large-caliber hits set her ablaze and knocked out her engineering spaces. She took at least two torpedoes. By 0235, Quincy had heeled to port and was sinking. Captain Samuel Moore ordered the crew to abandon ship. She sank at 0238, less than 40 minutes after the battle began, taking 370 men to the bottom with her.

Her crew fought. Even caught completely by surprise, even outnumbered and outgunned, the men of Quincy manned their guns and returned fire until the sea took them. That courage deserves to be remembered, not just the defeat, but the fighting spirit that the crew showed even in their last minutes.

Quincy rests in Iron Bottom Sound alongside hundreds of other Allied and Japanese ships, a graveyard of the desperate early battles that decided who would control the Pacific. Tactically Acquired's USS Quincy (CA-39) collection honors those 370 men and every sailor who served aboard her. They gave everything.