Thursday, November 29, 2012

USS Providence CL-82

My father served on the light cruiser USS Providence CL-82 in 1947-1948.  He went on two tours with the ship to the Mediterranean as a radar operator.


The ship was commissioned in 1945 and decommissioned shortly after my father was aboard her, in 1949.
Then she went into the reserve fleet.



In 1957 she came out of reserves and was modified to a guided missile cruiser and renumbered CLG-6.
She served in that capacity until 1980 when she was sold for scrap.

* * *

The ship name was later reused for the Los Angeles class submarine SSN-719.
Launched in 1984 she still is active.

Periodically I'll search ebay for USS Providence stuff.
CL-82 Providence stuff.

Since the life of the ship as CL-82 was a reasonably brief four years, I had wanted to find something off the ship with a high probability that it was actually on the ship the same time my father was.

Well, I finally found something.


A matchbook cover with an image of the ship, the ships name and number, and an emblem.



I see a pilgrim and an anchor with chain, but there's another blob in there that I can't quite make out.
Rhode Island maybe?
I can't find another example of this emblem anywhere, but I have to assume that it's the ships emblem.

2 comments:

  1. My father served on her in 1945 from shakedown cruise until 1946. Mediterranean fleet.Thanks for the picture.

    ReplyDelete