page_title: USS Omaha (CL-4)
section_title: Recovery of U-177 survivors
hierarchical_section_title: USS Omaha (CL-4) / Service history / World War II / Recovery of U-177 survivors
caption_attribution_description: English: Eleanor Roosevelt (standing, upper right center) addresses the crew of the U.S. Navy light cruiser USS Omaha (CL-4) on 16 March 1944. Standing beside her, to the left, is Rear Admiral Oliver M. Read, USN, Commander Surface Patrol Force (Task Force 41), U.S. Fourth Fleet.
context_page_description: USS Omaha (CL-4) was the lead ship of the Omaha-class light cruiser of the United States Navy. She was originally classified as a scout cruiser. She was the second US Navy ship named for the city of Omaha, Nebraska, the first being Omaha, a screw sloop launched in 1869.
  Omaha spent most of her career in the Pacific. At this time her primary mission was training, and she proved to be very capable by consistently winning fleet awards in gunnery and communications. She made many ports-of-call throughout the Pacific, Mediterranean and Caribbean during her peacetime cruises, displaying the Stars and Stripes. In 1941, prior to the US entering the war, she was assigned to Neutrality Patrol in the Atlantic, based in Recife, Brazil. Nearly a month before the US entered the war she captured the German blockade runner SS Odenwald, for which she holds the claim as being the last US Navy ship to be awarded "prize" money.
  After the US entered the war she continued her activities of guarding convoys in the Atlantic between South America and Western Africa.
context_section_description: Omaha was out patrolling with Memphis and Jouett on 6 February 1944, when the ships were given orders to be on the lookout for the survivors of a U-boat that had been sunk earlier in the day near their location. A yellow life raft was later spotted by Omaha's lookouts. The occupants were German sailors that had survived the sinking of their boat, U-177, that had been sunk by a Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberator from Bombing Squadron (VB) 107 that was operating out of Ascension Island. U-177 had been sitting on the surface while some of the crew where sunning and swimming.
  According to Leutnant zur See Hans-Otto Brodt, their commanding officer Korvettenkapitän Heinz Bucholz and another 50 men of the crew of 64, went down with the ship. The prisoners were sent to the sick bay for treatment of shock and exposure and supplied with fresh clothing that had been provided by the Red Cross. Until Omaha put in at Bahia, on 15 February, where they debarked and were transported to Recife, the Germans were placed under armed guard.
caption: Omaha hosted First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and RADM Oliver M. Read, Commander, Surface Patrol Force (TF 41), 16 March 1944, at Recife, Brazil.
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