The third Astoria (CL-90) was named for the city and port of entry in northwestern Oregon, on the southern bank at the mouth of the Columbia River, the seat of Clatsop County. William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Co. laid her down at Philadelphia on 6 September 1941. She was launched on 6 March 1943. Mrs. Robert Lucas, wife of the editor of the Astorian Budget, sponsored her. The Navy commissioned Astoria (CL-90) at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 17 May 1944, with Captain George C. Dyer in command. The DANFS hull line gives 10,000 tons, a beam of 66 feet 4 inches, a draft of 25 feet 8 inches, 31.6 knots on trials, a complement of 1,263, twelve 6-inch guns, twelve 5-inch guns, twenty-eight 40 mm guns, and twenty-two 20 mm guns, and places her in the Cleveland class. The length on that line is printed as 610T'.
Astoria (CL-90) shook down near Bermuda from 6 June to 23 July 1944 and returned to Philadelphia that same day for post-shakedown overhaul. She left Philadelphia on 19 September for the Pacific, passed the Panama Canal, and reached San Diego on 3 October. Later in the month she went to the Mare Island Navy Yard and got underway for Hawaii on the 25th. She arrived at Oahu on 31 October and stayed at Pearl Harbor until 16 November. That day she sailed for Ulithi in the western Carolines, stopped at Eniwetok in the Marshalls, and entered the Ulithi lagoon on 25 November. There she reported to Task Group 38.2 of the Fast Carrier Task Force.
Astoria (CL-90) sortied with Task Force 38 on 11 December 1944 on her first war cruise, in the antiaircraft screen while the carriers' planes supported the landings of Mindoro. The carriers launched strikes from 14 to 16 December. The weather turned on the 17th. That night and the next day she steamed with the force through the typhoon that sank Spence (DD-512), Hull (DD-350), and Monaghan (DD-354). The cruiser weathered it fairly well. After two days of searching for survivors of the three destroyers, the force returned to Ulithi for Christmas.
She left Ulithi on 30 December, when Task Force 38 went out to cover the Luzon landings set for 9 January 1945. Direct support lasted from 6 to 9 January. On the night of the 9th Admiral Halsey led the force, including Astoria (CL-90), into the South China Sea. For two weeks the carriers hit military targets in Japanese-held southern China and French Indochina and harassed Formosa in between. Astoria (CL-90) stayed in the screen while the air groups bombed shipping and shore installations around Camranh Bay, Hong Kong, Canton, Formosa, and Hainan. The force was back at Ulithi on 25 January.
Early in February Astoria (CL-90) sortied again with the carriers. They were now Task Force 58 under Admiral Spruance, sent to strike the Japanese home islands for the first time since the Halsey-Doolittle raid of 1942. The force arrived off Honshu on 16 February and spent two days raiding the Tokyo area. On the 18th it headed south, struck Chi Chi Jima in the Bonins in passing, and was off Iwo Jima by mid-afternoon the next day. While the carrier aircraft supported the landings, Astoria (CL-90) moved close to shore on the 21st and fired in support of the troops ashore for 26 hours. She then went north for further carrier strikes on Tokyo and was back at Ulithi by 3 March.
On 14 March she returned to sea with Task Force 58 for the campaign to take Okinawa. Astoria (CL-90) remained at sea with the fast carriers for 80 days. Their planes struck shipping, airfields, and other installations on and around Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu, and on Okinawa and the islands around it. She provided antiaircraft defense for the carriers of her task group and claimed 11 enemy planes, with assists on numerous others. The cruise ended at Leyte on 1 June.
She stayed at Leyte a month for repairs, and the crew had some rest. On 1 July Astoria (CL-90) went out for her last combat of the war, screening the carriers as they launched planes against the Japanese home islands. With Cruiser Division 17 she made two antishipping sweeps along the Honshu coast, both unsuccessful, on the nights of 17 and 18 July and of 24 and 25 July. Carrier strikes on Japan continued through July and the first two weeks of August. After Japan agreed to capitulate and hostilities ceased on 15 August, she kept patrolling off Honshu with Task Force 38 until 3 September, when she was ordered home. She reached San Pedro, California, on 15 September and remained until 24 November.
On 24 November Astoria (CL-90) sailed for Hawaii, arrived at Pearl Harbor on the 30th, and held type training for several days. She left for San Pedro on 10 December and arrived on the 15th. For the next ten months she ranged the Pacific coast from San Diego to Vancouver, British Columbia. On 15 October 1946 she left San Pedro, steamed by way of Pearl Harbor, and reached Guam on 2 November. She operated in the Marianas, often at Guam and Saipan, until mid-February 1947, sailed from Guam on the 19th by way of Kwajalein and Pearl Harbor, and entered San Diego on 24 March. She resumed Pacific-coast duty until October 1948.
Captain George Carroll Dyer had Astoria (CL-90) from the commissioning. NavSource relieves him on 9 June 1945 and gives the ship to Captain William Van Hamilton, who had her until 19 March 1946. Captain Frank Robinson Walker then had her until November 1946. The list gives no day in that month. Captain Harry Bean Jarrett had her from November 1946 to September 1947, Captain William Lenhart Hoffheins Jr. from September 1947 to August 1948, and Captain Louis Newcomb Miller from August 1948 through 30 June 1949.
On 1 October 1948 Astoria (CL-90) headed for the Far East. She stopped three days at Pearl Harbor and reached Tsingtao, China, on 29 October. For almost four months she cruised Asian waters, calling at Inchon and Pusan in Korea, Sasebo and Yokosuka in Japan, and Shanghai and Tsingtao in China. On 16 February 1949 she left Yokosuka, stopped at Pearl Harbor, and arrived at San Francisco on 8 March. On 1 July 1949 she was placed out of commission and berthed with the San Francisco Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet. She was transferred to the San Diego Group on 20 May 1958 and stayed in reserve another eleven years. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 1 November 1969. On 12 January 1971 she was sold to the Nicolai Joffe Corp. of Beverly Hills, California, for scrapping. Astoria (CL-90) earned five battle stars for World War II. She was not sunk.
A note on sources. The narrative follows the Naval History and Heritage Command's Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships entry for Astoria III (CL-90) for dates, places, the typhoon, the shore bombardment, the claim of 11 planes, the postwar cruises, the decommissioning, the striking, the sale, and the five battle stars. That page's digitized copy prints the length as 610T'. The HyperWar copy of the same history prints 610'1". NavSource's class block prints 610 feet 1 inch overall. The length is left as the NHHC page prints it. HyperWar also prints Astorian-Budget with a hyphen, where NHHC prints Astorian Budget; "landings on Mindoro," where NHHC prints "landings of Mindoro"; "sorted" for "sortied"; Task Force 48 heading south on 18 February 1945, where NHHC prints Task Force 58; departure from Guam in mid-February 1948, where NHHC prints mid-February 1947; and "customary stops" at Pearl Harbor in 1949, where NHHC prints one stop. NHHC is followed. NavSource alone gives an order date of 29 October 1940, ten 20 mm guns against the DANFS twenty-two, 32.5 knots against 31.6, a crew of 1,255 against 1,263, a maximum draft of 25 feet against 25 feet 8 inches, and four aircraft. A 25 September 1941 newspaper photograph on the NavSource page captions the Cramp keel laying as Wilkes-Barre (CL-90). DANFS names this hull Astoria (CL-90). Commanding officers and dates are NavSource's list for CL-90. DANFS names only George C. Dyer, at the commissioning. NavSource gives no day for the November 1946, September 1947, or August 1948 changes. uboat.net dates Dyer and Hamilton on the same days NavSource uses, and styles Dyer a temporary rear admiral from 25 September 1943. The command lines keep NavSource's rank of captain for that cruise.
