德拉克講海軍歷史 戰艦指南 223 - 美國海軍阿斯托利亞級重型巡洋艦 阿斯托利亞號（CA-34)

USS Astoria was the lead ship of the Astoria-class heavy cruisers of the U.S. Navy. Although, that class might be unfamiliar to you. It's more widely known as the New Orleans-class. We'll see why later. The class suffered from some odd issues when it came to actually naming them. The lowest numbered hull was CA-32, New Orleans. But Astoria, CA-34, was the first ship laid down by about half a year, her keel being set in September 1930 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. But four of her sisters would precede her in launching, the first being San Francisco, CA-38, which had been laid down over a year later. She'd also be the first to commission, although by that stage Astoria had regained third place, coming into service only a couple of months after San Francisco in April 1934. But whilst San Francisco was first to enter service, the class was named the Astoria-class due to the aforementioned status as the first ship laid down. But whilst San Francisco was the first to enter service, the class was named the Astoria-class due to the aforementioned status as the first ship laid down. Between design finalisation and commission, the London Naval Treaty had come into effect, and so she entered service as a heavy cruiser, assigned to the Pacific as part of the scouting force, which was the main fleet role of fast U.S. cruisers at the time, and taking part in a number of the U.S. Navy's big fleet problem exercises. The end of the inter-war period saw the ship undergo something of a whipsaw effect in treatment. Back in 1939, the Japanese ambassador had died, and the Astoria was assigned to take his remains home, where the ship and her crew were warmly welcomed and given gifts in appreciation for their delicate and respectful handling of the matter. Returning home, Astoria would find herself settling into a new station at Pearl Harbour, something of a pathfinder, as later the bulk of the Pacific fleet's strength would follow her there. War clouds were gathering, and the Astoria would be fitted with more anti-aircraft guns and start escorting shipping, just in case a random hilfskruiser decided to hilf itself to a U.S. ship. In a similar vein, she would form part of an escort for USS Lexington on the carrier's mission to reinforce Wake and Midway Islands. Thus, Astoria would miss being part of the Pearl Harbour attack, but now the same nation that a couple of years earlier had lavished her with honours was doing its level best to destroy her. Returning to the shattered naval base, Astoria was assigned further crew, mostly survivors from USS California who were understandably eager to get back into the fight, and after a couple of false starts, she would form part of an escort for a carrier raid on Japanese shipping. This would prove relatively successful in provoking a Japanese response and that chain of events led in part to the Battle of the Coral Sea, which would see Astoria providing anti-aircraft cover first to Lexington and then Yorktown as the first major carrier battle of the war unfolded. Although the former was lost and the latter damaged, Astoria herself came through fine and had put up a decent anti-aircraft screen in her sector of operations. She then accompanied the patched-up Yorktown to Midway, where, despite her best efforts, surviving VAL dive bombers crippled the carrier, with Astoria taking Admiral Fletcher aboard shortly before a four-way assault by a second wave of Japanese aircraft further damaged Yorktown, after which her main role was taking aboard the rest of the crew as they were ordered to abandon ship for the most part, with Astoria remaining in the area until a Japanese submarine managed to finish off the stricken carrier and force the retirement of the escort group. A brief refit after this action would see Astoria assigned to cover the Guadalcanal landings, where she again reprised an anti-aircraft role, protecting the landing force from air assault before being deployed as part of a screen north of the landings on the night of 8 August 1942. This would turn out to be her final assignment as Admiral McCalla's force approached under the cover of darkness and, finding the Allied surface force, attacked. Astoria was part of the northern group and thus not subject to the first assault but this detachment was soon enough engaged and although she was at the rear of the column it didn't take long for Japanese fire to start raking Astoria. A combination of a hangar fire and searchlights pointing at her rapidly marking her out for attention as Vincennes and Quincy ahead quickly succumbed to the Japanese assault. Trying to evade the burning hulks of her own sister ships and return fire at the same time Astoria would at least get some small measure of revenge hitting the Chukai's forward-most turret with a single shell before the Japanese withdrew leaving the poor ship powerless and ablaze. For a while it seemed that thanks to the heroic efforts of her surviving crew she might be saved and indeed she was still afloat come dawn but the fires below decks which were the hardest to fight eventually proved too much even with additional men boarding the ship to help out these fires began to spread fast as bulkheads failed under the heat and as a series of explosions saw her begin to list and settle by the stern the ship finally slipped beneath the waves around lunchtime with her passing went 219 men and the name of the class would be passed to the New Orleans That's it for this video Thanks for watching If you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below Don't forget to comment on the pinned post for dry-doc questions