USS Tuscaloosa Mast
Near Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Rising over this park is the mast of the USS Tuscaloosa, a heavy cruiser the Navy named for this very city. Launched in nineteen thirty-three, she went on to one of the busiest combat records of any American warship in World War Two.
In the Atlantic she escorted convoys, supported the invasion of North Africa, and joined the first carrier strikes against German held Norway. On D-Day, the sixth of June, nineteen forty-four, her guns pounded the Normandy coast. Then she shifted to the Pacific for the brutal landings at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
She earned seven battle stars, and remarkably, unlike three of her sister ships that were sunk, she was never damaged in battle. When she was finally scrapped, her mast was brought home to Tuscaloosa to stand here in honor.
