Displacing 10,000 tons, the Birmingham was 610 feet long, 66 feet wide, capable of speeds of up to 33 knots per hour, and crewed by 1,200 officers and men. The Birmingham‘s main armament consisted of four turrets with three six-inch guns and six secondary turrets of dual-mounted five-inch guns. The ship was designated a light cruiser not because of its displacement, but rather because of the limited size of its main guns. The USS Birmingham (CL-62) was constructed by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Virginia. A third vessel honored the city, the nuclear powered submarine USS Birmingham (SSN-695), that sailed with the U.S. Later, the ship participated in the United States’ intervention in Vera Cruz, Mexico, and operated in the Atlantic during World War I. It made history on November 14, 1910, when Eugene Ely made the first airplane take-off from a warship from a modified platform on its deck. The first Birmingham, an armored scout cruiser, served the U.S. The ship was the second ship to bear the name of Alabama‘s industrial center. During World War II, the Birmingham saw action in the Mediterranean in 1943 and later in the Pacific Theater of Operations, where the ship participated in numerous battles and was heavily damaged on three occasions. Launched on March 20, 1942, the USS Birmingham (CL-62) was a light cruiser of the so-called Cleveland class, named after the first such ship-the USS Cleveland.

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