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Following commissioning, light cruiser Phoenix conducted a shakedown cruise down the South American coast, returning to the Philadelphia Navy Yard in January, 1939. Transferred to the Pacific Fleet, Phoenix operated off the west coast until sent to Pearl Harbor in late 1940. Phoenix was in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, moored off McGrew Point in the northeast corner of East Loch. Her guns fired on enemy aircraft, but Phoenix was not attacked or damaged. Phoenix was able to sortie that day and, with cruisers St. Louis and Detroit, formed a task force attempting to locate the Japanese aircraft carriers.
After Pearl Harbor, Phoenix escorted convoys to the U.S. and Australia, where the ship was involved in defending the Dutch East Indies against the Japanese onslaught, operating in Indian Ocean waters for most of 1942. Following the evacuation of Java, Phoenix departed the war zone for overhaul at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. With much improved anti-aircraft weapons and new radars, Phoenix returned to combat duty in July of 1943, carrying Secretary of State Cordell Hull to Casablanca before being assigned once again to the Pacific, attached to the 7th Fleet supporting amphibious operations in the Southwest Pacific under General Douglas MacAurther.
Beginning with a bombardment of Cape Gloucester on New Britain in December of 1943, Phoenix was in almost constant action in the amphibious assaults against the Japanese in New Guinea. In January of 1944, Phoenix conducted a night bombardment of Madang. February saw Phoenix supporting the invasion of the Admiralty Islands, followed by bombardments around Hollandia, Wakde and Sawar in April 1944. Phoenix next attacked Biak in May, where she underwent several intense air attacks and was slightly damaged by a near-miss bomb that killed one man and wounded four. Bombardments of Noemfoor in July 1944 were followed by the assault on Morotai in September. In October Phoenix was one of the cruisers involved in the invasion of Leyte and the Battle of Surigao Strait, where her 15 - 6" guns contributed to sinking battleship Fuso. Phoenix remained in the Philippines area, operating against Mindoro, Luzon, Bataan and Corregidor. Phoenix then supported the fighting around Borneo until July 1945, when Phoenix was detached for a navy yard overhaul. She did not return to the war, decommissioning at Philadelphia in July of 1946.
Phoenix was sold to the Argentine Navy in 1951, becoming the Diecisiete de Octubre and then (in 1956) the General Belgrano. After 29 years of service in the Argentinian navy, the old cruiser was the last active survivor of Pearl Harbor in 1980 when she was hit by two torpedoes from the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror in the Falklands War. She sank in 45 minutes, with the loss of 321 men. (DBoyer 2007)
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