She was born in 1929, a true flapper, unfazed by a great worldwide depression, and began practicing her designed profession on three oceans.

Pampered? Over a thousand men were assigned to satisfy her needs, and she said "More"!

Proud? You should have seen her at Rio in 1930, sporting her new white canvas deck awning aft of Turret 4! An elongated bucket afloat in a corrosive liquid, she won a continuing fight with cancerous, pervasive rust, aided by a long, loving line of seamen 2c scrapers and painters.

With eleven battle stars on the bridge, her luck ran out at age 17, near a lonely island in a very large ocean - Bikini. She refused to sink in "Operation Crossroads", but her wrinkled skin had an incurable wound and caused rapid clicking noises if Geiger counters were near.

She was sentenced for a long, slow tow to the California Coast. The plan of the day on a dozen ships spelled "death by target practice".

She could offer only passive resistance. The proud turrets, 3 guns over 2 guns, were trained centerline, unmanned. Condition Zed was set. No flag was carried.

Then the execution began. The weapons of the friendly strangers were many and merciless, and ruptured hull #25 repeatedly, even vaporizing what shabby paint remained after the two atomic blasts. reluctant to expose her rusty bottom, she strangled and drowned in 4,000 feet of water about 2,000 miles northeast of her favorite rendezvous spot off Diamond Head.

She rest on her side, once sleek and smooth; now torn and bent into grotesque, disjointed art forms, seen only by those who killed her. Her resting place is frigid, hovering around 35 degrees, a perpetual reminder of the cold, gray days of Aleutian duty.

My sweetheart died at age 19. She is not comfortable in her slimy bed and settles one-half inch a year, seeking a less painful position. This movement causes a once-in-a-decade horrible groaning and screeching as a still-sturdy Bethlehem Eye-Beam is forced to pierce a rusted, weakened bulkhead. A small amount of thick oil escapes and begins a slow ascent toward the sunny surface, where an iridescent rainbow of color lasts only a few hours.

Swayback! Your submerged metal-to-metal grinding is heard clearly by a few squids, which skitter away, and less clearly by a couple of hundred senior citizens who still assemble bi-annually with aging shipmates to share and cherish their memories of service aboard "Salt Lake City".

We strain to make out your muffled cry. It sounds like "light off my boilers. I want to come to the surface and get a look at that submarine who is using my name."

Dead at 19, at the bottom of the Pacific. You lived at sea and died at sea. Nostalgia overwhelms me, but maybe it's for the best. After all, you could have been melted into scrap and made into fenders for Toyotas.

The End.

Date written unknown
This Tribute to USS Salt Lake City, the oldest US heavy cruiser in WWII, was written by Ensign C. W. "Bill" Kilpatrick, who served aboard for 15 months, in 1942-1943.