USS Omaha (CL-4-- Part 2): More Blockade Runners and France

The Omaha was 556 feet long and mounted ten 6-inch guns and had six torpedo tubes.

On January 4-5, 1944, the Omaha and destroyer USS Jouett (DD-396) sighted two German blockade-runners, the Rio Grande and Bergenland. The crews of both sank their ships to avoid capture, denying Germany of much-needed rubber. The American ships rescued the survivors.

August 1944 found the Omaha in the Mediterranean covering the Allied invasion of southern France. The Omaha did much damage firing at targets in the Toulon area. After that, it was back to the South Atlantic where the Omaha was at the end of the war.

It was decommissioned November 19, 1945 and scrapped at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1946.

--GreGen