USS Salem (CA-139)

Salem was laid down on 4 July 1945 by the Bethlehem Steel Co.'s Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts; launched on 25 March 1947, sponsored by Miss Mary G. Coffey and commissioned on 14 May 1949, with Captain John C. Daniel in command. Her main battery held the world's first automatic 8" guns and were the first 8" naval guns to use cased ammunition instead of shell and bag loading. ==Service career==

After a visit to Salem, Massachusetts, on 4 July 1949, Salem underwent three months of shakedown at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, between July and October 1949, followed by post-shakedown repairs at the Boston Navy Yard. She then made two cruises to Guantanamo in November and December 1949 and participated in maneuvers with the Atlantic Fleet in early 1950. on 19 May 1950 Salem departed the United States East Coast on 3 May 1950 and, on 17 May, relieved Newport News (CA-148) as flagship of the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. During this, the first of seven deployments to the Mediterranean as fleet flagship, Salem visited ports in Malta, Italy, France, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, and Algeria, and participated in training exercises. On 22 September, she was relieved by Newport News and returned to the United States. After three weeks at Boston, Salem joined the Atlantic Fleet for maneuvers and, on 3 January 1951, sailed for six weeks of intensive gunnery training at Guantanamo. She completed her training off Bermuda; and, on 20 March, sailed for the Mediterranean to relieve Newport News as 6th Fleet flagship. On 19 September, she was relieved by Des Moines (CA-134) and returned to the United States for four months of overhaul at Boston. Salem was scheduled for inactivation after her return from the Mediterranean, but the request of Lebanon on 15 August 1958 for aid against an anticipated coup led to a short reprieve. Salem had relieved on 11 August as flagship of Commander, 2nd Fleet and, on 2 September, departed Norfolk, visited Augusta Bay and Barcelona during a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean, and returned to Norfolk on 30 September. She reported to the Norfolk Navy Yard on 7 October for inactivation, disembarked the Commander of the 2nd Fleet on 25 October and was decommissioned on 30 January 1959. She was stored as part of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The ship was surveyed in 1981 for possible reactivation as part of the 600 ship navy project, and while the inspection results showed she was in excellent condition, funding to reactivate Salem and her sister Des Moines was not secured from Congress. Museum ship In October 1994, Salem was returned to Quincy, Massachusetts, where she is now a museum ship as part of the United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum. Salem also houses the Museum, The US Navy Cruiser Sailors Association Museum, and the US Navy SEALs Exhibit room. Salem was closed to tourists in September 2013 when the wharf to which she was moored became unstable. The wharf's former owner, the MBTA, forced the closure. Subsequently, the wharf was sold to private interests. Salem was opened on weekends in May 2015. Scheduled since the wharf closure to be moved to a location in East Boston, the United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum signed a deal with the landowner in February 2016 to keep Salem at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy until at least 2021 and was again opened for visits on weekends starting April 2016. In August 2017 Salem was closed to the public while she was being relocated to a different pier in the shipyard. As of August 2019 she was opened to the public on weekends. File:USS Salem museum.jpg|Salem at her former location in Quincy File:USS Salem (CA-139) museum ship - Quincy, Massachusetts - USA - 30 March 2012.jpg|Aft view in her former berth File:Uss-salem-2024-2.png|At her new berth File:Uss-salem-2024-1.png|View from the museum's parking lot File:USS Salem view from port bow looking astern.jpg|From port bow looking astern File:Ship's seal.jpg|Seal ==In the media==

Film USS Salem depicted the German pocket battleship, , in the 1956 film The Battle of the River Plate. Salem was featured in the 2016 feature film The Finest Hours directed by Craig Gillespie. She served as the set of the tanker which broke in two off of Cape Cod on 15 February 1952. Many machinery spaces and passageways were used for filming and can be spotted throughout the movie. Television The ship was featured on Ghost Hunters. In late 2016, USS Salem partnered with Ghost Ship Harbor, to create a haunted attraction on the deck of the ship. The event was a fundraiser for USS Salem and saw thousands of people visit the ship during the month of October to see the haunted houses that were built. In 2017 Fodor's ranked it the scariest haunted house in Massachusetts. Salem was featured as a haunted location on the paranormal TV series Most Terrifying Places which aired on the Travel Channel in 2019. The show featured tour guides and visitors who claimed to see the ghost of a former sailor who was badly burned in an explosion while on board . He was brought aboard the Salem when it was docked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and was used to transport the men who were injured in the fire to the medical bay. ==References==