USS Little Rock CL 92
Ship Photo Tour

Note: Independence Seaport Museum has a collection of items pertaining to Cramp Shipbuilding. The museum can be found here:
          Penn's Landing
          211 So. Columbus Blvd. & Walnut St.
         Philadelphia, PA 19106
         (215) 413-8655
        www.phillyseaport.org

The top photo is an aerial view of Wm. Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Co., Phila. Pa.  taken on 11 Jan  1944.  At center MIAMI CL 89 (#532) nears completion. At left (partially cut off) is ASTORIA CL-90 (#533).  OKLAHOMA CITY CL 91 (#534) nears completion in the closer set of ways, while LITTLE ROCK CL 92 (#535) is under construction in the background. Photo is from NARA Records  - Group 80-G

Cramp Shipbuilding Company,  which had closed in 1927,  was reopened in 1941. Over the next four years the shipyard would begin construction on six (6) Cleveland Class light cruisers. They were as follows:

USS Little Rock CL 92 under construction at Cramp Shipbuilding
(ca. 1944)

"On August 27, 1944, Ruth May Wassell shattered a bottle on the hull of a new ship and christened it the U.S.S. Little Rock.   Mrs. Wassell, whose husband was Little Rock alderman Sam Wassell, had been designated as the official sponsor for the City of Little Rock by Mayor Charles Moyer.

Ruth May Wassell was more than the wife of a local political leader.  The daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Wiley Singleton May, she...  graduated from Little Rock High School.  She later graduated from Henderson-Brown College and received a law degree from the University of Arkansas.  In 1932, she was admitted to the Arkansas Bar and later was admitted to practice before the Arkansas Supreme Court... (she) was active in business, serving as president of the Arkansas Lumber Company and owner of a citrus farm in Texas.  She was also active in civic affairs through involvement with the Arkansas Democratic Women, Boys Club and Second Presbyterian Church.  From 1947 until 1951 she was First Lady of Little Rock when Sam Wassell was elected as Mayor...   She died in 1964."

Note: The photo of Mrs. Wassell (left) and the above excerpts are from an article entitled "Little Rock Look Back: Mrs. Ruth May Wassell Gibb" dated Mar. 9, 2016 and written by by Scott Whiteley Carter the "the unofficial historian of the City of Little Rock".

The entire article can be found in the section "Cultural events, places and people in the Little Rock area" on Scott's website "Little Rock Culture Vulture".

This photo is dated 10 May 1946, the day LITTLE ROCK departed Guantanamo Bay for Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The photo identifies the ships in the photo as: USS MIDWAY CVA 41 left, USS PRINCETON CVA 37 left rear, USS F.D. ROOSEVELT CVA 42 center, USS MACON CA 132, USS DAYTON CL105, and USS Little Rock CL 92 center foreground, USS CONSOLATION AH15, right rear. and AUXILIARIES, left and right foreground.

"USS Providence as seen from LITTLE ROCK. LITTLE ROCK was at Gibraltar with a replacement propeller for USS Providence. (Propeller had been damaged at Alexandria, Egypt, in May when PROVIDENCE ran aground.)"

USS Little Rock moored starboard side to at Copenhagen, Denmark. Note the great view of two of the ship's Curtiss SC-1Seahawk seaplanes and the massive crane used to move the aircraft.

Little Rock is one of the two light cruisers moored in the background. At this time Little Rock was operating with USS Houston CL-81 (CAPT Neil Kittrell Dietrich), USS Perry DD844 (CDR Clyde James Van Arsdall Jr.), USS Warrington DD843 (CDR Donald Wesley Wulzen), USS Glennon DD840 (CDR George Washington Pressey), and USS Cone DD866 (CDR John Shannon). An unknown Swedish Ship is also shown.

This is the same photo as that above, except that each of the U.S. Naval vessels are identified and the quality of the photo is slightly better.
 An unknown Swedish Ship is also shown.

U.S.S. Little Rock CL 92
Antwerp, Belgium
20 - 24 Jul 1946

A nice stern view of USS Little Rock pierside in Antwerp, Belgium
during her 1946 Northern Europe Cruuise.

U.S.S. Little Rock CL 92
Antwerp, Belgium
21 Jul 1946

A Starboard Bow view of USS Little Rock pierside in Antwerp, Belgium
during her 1946 Northern Europe Cruuise.



Source is Florent Van Otterdykmost, friend of deceased crew member. 

U.S.S. Little Rock with Two Destroyers

In 1946 Little Rock was operating in Northern European waters with the cruiser Houston and 4 destroyers. The adjacent picture shows the USS Cone DD866 and the USS Glennon DD840 moored outboard of a light Cleveland Class cruiser. The crane in the distance looks somewhat like the one in the picture below taken at the U.S. Naval Shipyard, New York, NY. Let us know if you have any further information.

This great CL 92 photo, originally submitted by ENS Ed Stiles, did not have a date or location.  It has since been determined with the help of the U.S. Archives that the picture was taken pierside in Lisbon, Portugal. The Archives photo was dated 19 Sep 1946, however this is probably the photo processing date. Most likely this photo of LITTLE ROCK was taken during her earlier August 15-21, 1946 visit to Lisbon. Note the small "92" hull designation and the light gray paint on the upper part of the bow.

0n 26 February 1947 LITTLE ROCK had entered U.S. Naval Shipyard, New York, NY (at Brooklyn) for a three-month overhaul. It would appear that the hull paint scheme was changed at this time from the "Measure 22" scheme to the now common all-gray scheme. LITTLE ROCK departed Brooklyn on 29 Jun 1947.

Three Cleveland Class Cruisers

U.S.S.  Providence (CL 82);
U.S.S.  Little Rock CL 92; and
U.S.S.  Portsmouth (CL 102)
(listed left to right)

Pierside San Juan, Puerto Rico, 15 May 1948. (Note the differing radar antenna rigs,
and other details of these three Cleveland class light cruisers,
each ten hull numbers apart in the cruiser hull number series.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.