USS Portland (CA-33) was named for the city in Maine, and she was the name ship of a class of two. Bethlehem Steel laid her down at Quincy, Massachusetts, on 17 February 1930. She was launched on 21 May 1932 and commissioned on 23 February 1933, Captain Herbert F. Leary in command. Nine 8-inch guns, a long hull, and a crew that called her Sweet Pea. Her only sister was Indianapolis, CA-35.
In July 1945 Indianapolis took parts of Little Boy to Tinian. I-58 sank her on the way to Leyte. That was not Portland. Portland did not carry the bomb, and she was not sunk.
At the Coral Sea she was in the cruiser screen with Minneapolis, New Orleans, Astoria, and Chester. She was not sunk. When Lexington was lost, Portland took survivors from the carrier aboard.
At Midway she was in Yorktown's screen, with Astoria. Captain Laurance T. DuBose had her by then. Minneapolis and New Orleans were with Enterprise and Hornet, not with her. On 4 June aircraft from Hiryu left Yorktown dead in the water. On 7 June I-168 sank the abandoned carrier, and sank Hammann where she lay alongside. Portland came through.
On 13 November 1942 she stood in Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan's column off Guadalcanal, behind San Francisco. Callaghan's flag was in that cruiser. The destroyers ahead were Cushing, Laffey, Sterett, and O'Bannon. Rear Admiral Hiroaki Abe was coming the other way with Hiei and Kirishima, the light cruiser Nagara, and eleven destroyers. The lines ran together in the dark near Savo Island.
At 0158 a torpedo hit Portland on the starboard quarter. It blew off both inboard propellers, jammed the rudder five degrees to the right, and jammed No. 3 turret so it could not train. The ship that fired is not known. A small list was taken off by shifting ballast. The rudder was not. She circled to starboard, and she kept her forward guns in action.
She was not sunk. San Francisco was badly damaged in the same melee. Callaghan and Captain Cassin Young were killed aboard her. Hiei was disabled and sunk later that day. That sinking is not credited to Portland.
She reached Tulagi on 14 November. The stern was rebuilt, and by May 1943 she was at sea again. She was decommissioned at Philadelphia on 12 July 1946 and sold for scrap in 1959.
