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USS Galveston (CL-19)

Please see below for item level images and donated collections containing photographs of USS Galveston (CL-19)

USS Galveston (Cruiser No. 17) was laid down 19 January 1901 by William R. Trigg Co., Richmond, Va.; launched 23 July 1903; sponsored by Miss Ella Sealey; and commissioned at Norfolk, Va., 15 February 1905, Comdr. W. G. Cutler in command.

USS Galveston (Cruiser No. 17) departed Norfolk on 10 April 1905 for Galveston, Tex., where on 19 April she was presented a silver service by citizens of her namesake city. Returning to the East Coast 3 May, she departed New York 18 June for Cherbourg, France, where she arrived 30 June and took part in the ceremonies commemorating the return of the remains of John Paul Jones to the U.S. Naval Academy, reaching Annapolis on 22 July. USS Galveston (Cruiser No. 17) departed Tompkinsville, N.Y., on 28 December 1905 for service in the Mediterranean with the European Squadron until 28 March 1906 when she set course from Port Said to join the fleet at Cavite, P.I., for service on the Asiatic Station.

She arrived in San Francisco, Calif., from the Philippines on 17 February 1910; was decommissioned in the Puget Sound Navy Yard on the 21st; and recommissioned there on 29 June 1912 for service that included a training cruise to Alaska. She departed the Puget Sound Navy Yard on 19 September 1913, touching San Francisco, Hawaii and Guam on her way to Cavite, P.I., where she joined the Asiatic Fleet on 2 November.

USS Galveston (Cruiser No. 17) was assigned to Squadron 2 of the Atlantic Fleet Cruiser Force for convoy escort duties concurrent with the training of Armed Guard crews.  On the morning of 30 September the convoy was attacked by German submarine U-152. Alerted by the flashing explosion to starboard, Galveston headed for the scene of attack and opened fire on the U-boat. Cargo ship Ticonderoga was shelled and sunk in the 2-hour battle with a loss of 213 lives but the remaining ships of the convoy were brought safely into Ponta Delgada 4 October 1918. With the initial assignment of hull classification symbols and numbers to U.S. Navy ships in 1920, USS Galveston was classified as PG-31. She then returned home by way of Suez Canal and Mediterranean ports reached Boston 17 September 1920, and became a unit of the Special Service Squadron watching over American interests in waters ranging to the Panama Canal and down the West Coast of the Central American States to Corinto, Nicaragua. On 8 August 1921 she was reclassified CL-19.

USS Galveston (CL-19) was recommissioned 5 February 1924 for duty with the Special Service Squadron. She based most of her operations out of Christobal and Balboa, Panama, in a series of patrols that took her off the coast of Honduras, Cuba, and Nicaragua. After a voyage north in the fall of 1929 for overhaul in the Boston Navy Yard, USS Galveston (CL-19) revisited her namesake 26 to 29 October for the Navy Day celebrations, then touched Cuba on her way to Haiti, where she embarked Marines for transport to the Panama Canal. USS Galveston (CL-19) was decommissioned at Philadelphia on 2 September 1930; struck from the Navy List 1 November 1930, and sold for scrapping 13 September 1933 to the Northern Metal Co. of Philadelphia Pa.

For a complete history of USS Galveston (CL-19) please see its DANFS page.