Warship Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019: The first of the Big W’s

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019: The first of the Big W’s

NH 97885

Here we see the one-of-a-kind U.S. Navy heavy cruiser USS Wichita (CA-45) amid a winter storm off Iceland in 1941-42. Note the PBY patrol plane on the deck of the seaplane tender from which the photograph was taken. The mighty and unique warship would earn a full baker’s dozen battlestars across multiple theaters in WWII, taking fire from the French, Germans and Japanese.

Sandwiched between the seven 588-foot/12,600-ton New Orleans (CA-32)-class cruisers of the 1930s and the 14 more modern 673-foot/17,000-ton Baltimore (CA-68)-class cruisers…