MY SHIP

When the USS TOPEKA, CLG 8, is placed in commission today, each officer and man assigned to duty aboard her will refer to the TOPEKA as his ship. This fine old Navy tradition of personal identification and attachment reveals the key to United States Navy esprit de corps.

The Americans who man the TOPEKA are sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States and to defend our freedoms and our way of life against all enemies, foreign and domestic. For that reason every American can say with the members of TOPEKA's Ship's Company, "This is my Ship."

USS TOPEKA
(CLG 8)

Built by
Bethlehem Steel Company Quincy, Massachusetts
as CL-67

Keel Laid -- 21 April 1943
Launched -- 19 August 1944
Commissioned - 23 December 1944
at Boston, Massachusetts

SPONSOR'

Mrs. Frank J. Warren
Wife of the Former Mayor of Topeka, Kansas
Converted to Guided Missile Light Cruiser

New York Naval Shipyard
Brooklyn, New York
19 August 1957 to 25 March 1960

Commissioned as CLG- 8 26 March 1960

UNITED STATES SHIP
USS TOPEKA (CLG 8)

The guided missile cruiser TOPEKA which is being commissioned is a far cry from earlier TOPEKA's. Today we have Terrier missiles, a proven highly accurate air defense capability, in addition to six 6-inch and six 5-inch guns. She now carries a peace time complement of 68 officers and 975 men.

The first U. S. Navy ship, named TOPEKA, also, had six guns--4-inch cannons they were then, and carried 14 officers and 153 men. She was originally built in 1881 in Kiel, Germany, sold to the British, and purchased by the U. S. in 1898 in time to see action in the Spanish-American War in Cuban waters.

As the PG-35, a gunboat, the original TOPEKA served until 1930. She had a varied career, having duties as a training ship sailing in Caribbean waters and pioneering in wireless telegraphy during the early 1900s in the Atlantic Ocean.

After assisting in protecting American lives and property during a civil disturbance in the Dominican Republic she led a rather prosaic life as a prison ship and harbor protector at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

During World War I she served as a training ship until 1919 when she was dispatched to Tampico, Mexico, where she patrolled the Gulf of Mexico until late 1919. She then served as a training ship again, this time for the Naval Reserve, until she was sold to the Union Shipbuilding Company of Baltimore, Maryland in 1930.

The first cruiser TOPEKA, the CL-67, the same hull we have today, was built by the Bethlehem Steel Company at Quincy, Massachusetts. Her keel was laid on April 21, 1944 and she was launched on August 19, 1944, under the sponsorship of Mrs. Frank J. Warren, wife of the Mayor of Topeka, Kansas. The ship was placed in commission as a light cruiser in Boston on 23 December 1944 under the command of Captain Thomas L. Wattles, USN.

TOPEKA was Tokyo-bound. She sailed for Pearl Harbor, arriving there in May 1945. In June she participated in strikes on enemy-held islands in support of the capture of Okinawa, and in July she steamed up near the Japanese mainland conducting strikes against military shore targets and shipping. Later in the month she took part in the shore bombardment of Japanese Islands. She then joined a carrier striking group and operated in support of carrier air strikes until the cessation of hostilities in August 1945. On 16 September TOPEKA anchored in Tokyo Bay.

The CL-67 continued her Pacific Operations in support of the Occupation Forces in Japan and the mandated islands until 1947. After several trips to and from her home port of Long Beach, California, to the Far East for Fleet Maneuvers and patrol of the China Coast, she returned to San Francisco and was placed out of commission in June 1949.

By 1957 the Terrier missile had been fully tested in the fleet and, rather than build a completely new ship to accommodate the missile system, it was decided to convert the "old" TOPEKA. She was brought around to the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn for the conversion and was soon re-designed as the CLG 8, one of a series of modern light missile cruisers.

TOPEKA has been fully modernized and today joins with pride the ranks of our new missile-age Navy.