Building and pre-war service
The Brooklyn-class light cruiser Phoenix, the third Navy ship of the name, was named for the capital of Arizona. New York Shipbuilding Corporation laid her down at Camden, New Jersey, on 15 April 1935. She was launched on 13 March 1938, sponsored by Mrs. Dorothea Kays Moonan, and commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 3 October 1938. After shakedown she passed through the Panama Canal in March 1939 to a new home port at San Pedro, California. She toured the West Coast from Santa Cruz to Portland, and in 1940 moved forward with the fleet to Pearl Harbor.
Pearl Harbor and the defense of Australia
On 7 December 1941 she was anchored northeast of Ford Island near the hospital ship Solace and came through the attack undamaged. On 12 January 1942 she sailed from San Francisco escorting the first large convoy to Australia after the attack. The liners Mariposa, President Coolidge and President Monroe carried troops, fifty crated P-40 fighters, munitions, and the officers who were to form the core of MacArthur's Southwest Pacific headquarters. In February she escorted the Fremantle convoy that included Langley and Sea Witch, which were detached under Admiral Helfrich's orders to carry aircraft to Tjilatjap. Langley was sunk on 27 February. Phoenix handed her Colombo-bound ships to HMS Enterprise west of the Cocos Islands on 28 February and returned to Fremantle on 5 March. For the rest of 1942 she escorted convoys in the Indian Ocean as far as Bombay and served with Task Force 44.
New Guinea and the Admiralties
She left Brisbane in July 1943 for overhaul at Philadelphia and then carried Secretary of State Cordell Hull to Casablanca. Back with the Seventh Fleet, she shelled Madang and Alexishafen on the night of 25–26 January 1944. On 29 February she supported the 1st Cavalry Division's reconnaissance in force on Los Negros in the Admiralties, with General Douglas MacArthur aboard. On 4 and 7 March she, Nashville and HMAS Shropshire silenced the guns on Hauwei Island. She covered the Hollandia landings on 22 April and the Biak landings. At Biak, low-flying torpedo bombers attacked her in Yapen Strait and missed, and she took part in the long-range chase in which the destroyer Shigure was hit.
Leyte Gulf and the Philippines
In the Battle of Surigao Strait on the night of 24–25 October 1944 she sailed in Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf's battle line. She fired four spotting salvos, and when the fourth hit she opened up with her full 6-inch battery. Her target turned out to be the battleship Yamashiro, which sank after 27 minutes of concentrated American fire. Fusō and three destroyers were also lost, and Mogami was sunk the next day. On 1 November ten torpedo planes and kamikazes attacked her group. Her 5-inch guns set afire a plane that still crashed Ammen, her machine guns shot down a torpedo plane at 09:57, and Claxton, Killen and Abner Read were all hit around her. Five days later her 40 mm guns brought down a kamikaze only 100 yards away. She covered the Mindoro landings through constant single-plane attacks in December. On the way to Lingayen Gulf she dodged two torpedoes from a submarine off Siquijor, which the destroyer Taylor then forced to the surface and rammed. She supported the recapture of Bataan and Corregidor from 13 to 28 February 1945, and from 29 June to 7 July she covered the minesweeping at Balikpapan, Borneo, where mines and heavy coastal fire sank or damaged eleven sweepers.
Fate
She was on her way to Pearl Harbor for overhaul when Japan surrendered. She reached the Panama Canal on 6 September 1945, joined the Atlantic Fleet, and was decommissioned at Philadelphia on 3 July 1946. She was sold to Argentina on 9 April 1951 and commissioned as ARA Diecisiete de Octubre on 17 October 1951. In 1956 she was renamed General Belgrano. On 2 May 1982, during the Falklands War, the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed and sank her with the loss of 323 lives. She was the first ship sunk in combat by a nuclear-powered submarine. Her bell is in the Naval History and Heritage Command's collection.
Sources
Wikipedia, "USS Phoenix (CL-46)" and "ARA General Belgrano" (citing DANFS).
NHHC/DANFS, "Phoenix III."
Flag: The 2 May 1982 sinking date comes from the Belgrano article and general record, not the Phoenix extract.