USS Fresno (CL-121)

Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	12 February 1945
Launched:	5 March 1946
Commissioned:	27 November 1946
Decommissioned:	17 May 1949
Struck:	April 1965
Fate:	Scrapped in 1966
General characteristics
Displacement:	6,000 tons
Length:	541 ft 6 in
Beam:	53 ft 3 in
Draught:	16 ft 4 in
Propulsion:
Speed:	33 knots
Range:
Complement:	623 officers and enlisted
Armament:	12 × 5 in (6 × 2)
Aircraft:	None
Motto:

For other ships with the same name, see USS Fresno.

The second USS Fresno (CL-121) was a United States Navy Atlanta-class light cruiser launched on 5 March 1946 by Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company of Kearny, New Jersey, sponsored by Mrs. Ruth R. Martin; and commissioned on 27 November 1946, with Captain E. B. Strauss in command. She was reclassified CLAA-121 on 18 March 1949.

During her first operational cruise, from 13 January 1947 to 7 May, Fresno not only concluded her preliminary training in the Caribbean, but also visited Montevideo, Uruguay, during a presidential inauguration and called at Rio de Janeiro. On 1 August, she sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, for a tour of duty which took her to ports both of northern Europe and the Mediterranean, returning to Norfolk on 1 December.

A second overseas deployment, from 3 March 1948 to 19 June, found Fresno visiting Amsterdam, Dublin, Bergen, and Copenhagen from her overseas base at Plymouth, England. Her coastwise operations from Norfolk included cruises to Prince Edward Island and Bermuda prior to her decommissioning at New York Naval Shipyard on 17 May 1949. Placed in reserve, she was berthed at Bayonne, New Jersey. She was sold for scrap 17 June 1966.

References

•  This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
• navsource.org: USS FRESNO (CL/CLAA-121)