USS Canberra (CA-70) firing rockets – 1962

The “mothballed” heavy cruiser Canberra, a 13,600 ton unit of the Baltimore class, was redesignated CAG-2 in early January 1952. She was subsequently towed from Bremerton, Washington, to Camden, New Jersey, to begin an extensive conversion to a guided missile heavy cruiser. This work, which took some four years, significantly changed the ship’s appearance. It included replacing her after eight-inch gun turret and five-inch gun mount with two launchers for “Terrier” anti-aircraft guided missiles, plus installation of an extensive suite of radars and other electronics.

Canberra, now the second ship of 13,300-ton Boston class, was recommissioned in mid-June 1956. She operated in the Caribbean and Western Atlantic for more than a year, during which time she carried President Dwight D. Eisenhower to a conference at Bermuda, participated in the June 1957 International Naval Review at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and made a Midshipmen training cruise to Brazil. In September 1957 she took part in a major North Atlantic Treaty Organization exercise in the northeastern Atlantic, then steamed south to begin her first tour in the Mediterranean Sea. After returning to the the U.S. in March 1958, she served as ceremonial flagship for the selection of the Unknown Soldier of World War II and transported Midshipmen on a summer training cruise to Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands.

In March 1960 Canberra began an eight-month cruise around the World, operating with both the Seventh Fleet in Asian waters and with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. She took part in the Cuban Quarantine in the fall of 1962 and, in October 1963, was transferred to the Pacific Fleet. The Vietnam War soon became the focus of her final half-decade. Conducting her first combat deployment since the World War II, she spent the first several months of 1965 off Southeast Asia. A second Vietnam deployment followed in February-June 1966 and a third lasted from October 1966 until April 1967. During these operations her six remaining eight-inch guns were extensively employed for shelling enemy positions in both North and South Vietnam.

Bombardment duty dominated Canberra’s next two war tours, in October 1967-April 1968 and from September 1968 to January 1969. This gunnery emphasis, plus the outdated nature of her “Terrier” guided missile system, caused her reclassification back to a heavy cruiser in May 1968, when she regained her original hull number, CA-70. Canberra’s missile launchers and guidance radars were removed in 1969, following the end of her last Vietnam cruise. Soon thereafter, in October 1969, she arrived at San Francisco, California, to begin inactivation work. Decommissioned in early February 1970, USS Canberra was stricken from the Naval Vessel Regiser in July 1978 and sold for scrapping in July 1980.

Source: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-c/cag2.htm