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Saturday 18 October 2014

American light cruiser USS Springfield (CL-66/CLG-2/CG-7) 1942-1980

Arrival in the harbour of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Joost Evers/Anefo 1967. Beeldbank Nationaal Archief. CC Attribution-ShareAlike. Original url


Of the Cleveland-class. Laid down at the Fore River shipyard of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Springfield, Illinois, USA on 13 February 1943, launched while sponsored by Mrs. Angelina Bertera and Miss Norma McCurley on 9 March 1944, commissioned on 9 September 1944, reclassified as CLG-7 after being rebuilt at Quincy/Boston as a Providence class guided missile light cruiser on 23 May 1957, decommissioned on 15 May 1974, reclassified as CG-7 on 1 July 1975, stricken on 31 July 1980 and finally sold to be broken up on 11 March 1980.

With a displacement of 10.601/10.000 long tons were her dimensions 185,95 x 20,19 x 7,49 metres or 610’1” x 66’3” x 24’7”. The geared turbines supplied 100.000 hp/74.570 kW allowing a speed of 31,6knots. Her crew numbered 1.319 persons and her armament consisted of 4x3-15cm/6” guns, 12-13cn/5” guns and 28-4cm guns.

In the period September-November 1967 she conducted gunnery exercises and was testing guide missiles and afterwards visited England, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Majorca. According to the newspaper Amigoe di Curacao dated 31 January 1969 was a non-official visit to Curacao, Netherlands Antilles planned between 3-6 February. Her commanding officer was L.W. Zech jr. Apparently was the same year again sent to Curacao to evacuate American citizens regarded the troubled situation there.