USS Salt Lake City (CA-25)

USS Salt Lake City (CA-25): Swayback Maru

Commissioned on 11 December 1929, USS Salt Lake City was the second ship of the Pensacola class and one of the most battle-tested cruisers in the entire United States Navy. Her crew called her "Swayback Maru", a affectionate dig at the pronounced sheer of her hull that gave her a slight hogged appearance. The Japanese called her something else: a ship that simply would not die.

Like her sister Pensacola, Salt Lake City was originally classified CL-25 before being reclassified CA-25 on 1 July 1931. Her armament, ten 8-inch guns arranged in an unusual configuration of two triple turrets fore and aft and two twin wing turrets, made her one of the most heavily armed cruisers afloat within treaty limits. She was a product of American naval architects pushing those limits to their legal edge.

Salt Lake City was at sea when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and she wasted no time joining the Pacific fight. She participated in the Doolittle Raid escort mission in April 1942, screening the task force that launched Jimmy Doolittle's B-25s from USS Hornet toward Tokyo. She fought at the Battle of Cape Esperance in October 1942, part of the grinding naval campaign around Guadalcanal where the U.S. Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy traded blows night after night in the waters the Americans called Iron Bottom Sound.

But her defining moment came on 26 March 1943 in the fog-shrouded North Pacific, the Battle of the Komandorski Islands. A small American force of two cruisers and four destroyers stumbled into a far superior Japanese fleet of four cruisers and four destroyers. What followed was the longest continuous daylight surface engagement of the entire Pacific War. For over three hours, Salt Lake City traded gunfire with a Japanese heavy cruiser force that outgunned and outranged her. She was hit repeatedly. Her engine room took damage that brought her to a dead stop in the water, a sitting target 180 miles from the nearest friendly port.

While her destroyers made a suicidal torpedo run to buy time, Salt Lake City's engineering crew worked under fire to get her moving again. They succeeded. The Japanese admiral, fearing American air strikes that never came, broke off the engagement. Salt Lake City had fought an entire Japanese cruiser force to a standstill and survived on engineering skill and sheer grit. It was one of the most remarkable defensive actions of the Pacific War.

She added more battle stars through the Central Pacific campaign, Tarawa, Kwajalein, and operations against Truk, before the war's end. Her final count: eleven battle stars for World War II service. After the war she was designated a target vessel for the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946, surviving both Test Able and Test Baker before being decommissioned on 29 August 1946 and sunk as a target vessel in 1948.

The crew of Salt Lake City proved that American sailors could fight a bigger, better-armed enemy to a standstill and walk away. That's the legacy carried in every piece of gear bearing her name. Tactically Acquired's USS Salt Lake City (CA-25) collection honors the Swayback Maru and every man who kept her fighting when it mattered most.