USS Milwaukee ( CL - 5 ) USS " Milwaukee " ( CL - 5 ) was an " Omaha " - class light cruiser built for the United States Navy during the 1920s . The ship spent most of her early career assigned to the Asiatic and Battle Fleet s . In 1941 she was assigned to the Neutrality Patrol until she was refitted in New York in late 1941 . She escorted a troop convoy to the Pacific in early 1942 before returning to the South Atlantic where she patrolled for German commerce raiders and blockade runner s . In November , she intercepted one of the latter ships , but it scuttled itself before it could be captured . In 1944 she was temporarily transferred to the Soviet Navy and commissioned as " Murmansk " . The ship was returned by the Soviets in 1949 and sold for scrap in December . Description . " Milwaukee " was long at the waterline and long overall , with a beam of and a mean draft of . Her standard displacement was and at full load . Her crew consisted of 29 officers and 429 enlisted men . The ship was fitted with a powerful echo sounder The ship was powered by four Westinghouse geared steam turbines , each driving one propeller shaft , using steam generated by 12 Yarrow boilers . The engines were rated at and designed to reach a top speed of . At deep load she carried of fuel oil that provided her a range of at a speed of . " Milwaukee " mounted a dozen 53 - caliber six - inch guns ; four in two twin gun turret s and eight in tiered casemate s fore and aft . Her secondary armament initially consisted of two 50 - caliber three - inch anti - aircraft ( AA ) guns in single mounts , but this was doubled to four guns during construction . " Milwaukee " was initially built with the capacity to carry 224 mines , but these were removed early in her career to make more space for crew accommodations . The ship carried above - water two triple and two twin torpedo tube mounts for torpedo es . The triple mounts were fitted on the upper deck , aft of the aircraft catapult s , and the twin mounts were one deck lower , covered by hatches in the side of the hull . These lower mounts proved to be very wet and were removed , and the openings plated over , before the start of World War II . Another change made before the war was to increase the guns to four , all mounted in the ship ' s waist . The ship lacked a full - length waterline armor belt . The sides of her boiler and engine rooms and steering gear were protected by of armor . The transverse bulkheads at the end of her machinery rooms were thick forward and three inches thick aft . The deck over the machinery spaces and steering gear had a thickness of 1 . 5 inches . The gun turrets were only protected against muzzle blast and the conning tower had 1 . 5 inches of armor . " Milwaukee " carried two floatplane s aboard that were stored on the two catapults . Initially these were probably Vought VE - 9s , but the ship operated Curtiss SOC Seagull s from 1935 and Vought OS2U Kingfisher s after 1940 . Wartime changes . After 1940 the lower aft six - inch guns were removed and the casemates plated over . The ship ' s anti - aircraft armament was augmented by two quadruple 1 . 1 - inch gun mounts by early 1942 , although these were replaced by twin Bofors 40 mm gun mounts later in the war . At about the same time , " Milwaukee " received eight Oerlikon 20 mm cannon . Service history . Inter - war period . " Milwaukee " , the third ship named for the city of Milwaukee , Wisconsin , was laid down by Seattle Construction and Drydock Company , Seattle , Washington on 13 December 1918 , launched on 24 March 1921 and was completed on 20 June 1923 . During the ship ' s shakedown cruise , she visited Sydney , Australia during the Pan - Pacific Scientific Congress which opened on 23 August . With her new depth – finding equipment , " Milwaukee " surveyed the floor of the Pacific en route . " The Milwaukee Seamount s in the Northern Pacific are named after a set of soundings taken by " Milwaukee " in 1929 . " During Fleet Problem VI , she collided with her sister ship in Guantanamo Bay , Cuba , on 1 February 1926 , although neither ship was seriously damaged . " Milwaukee " and the destroyer assisted victims of a fierce hurricane which had devastated the Isle of Pines in October 1926 . She was assigned to Cruiser Division 2 of the Asiatic Fleet in 1928 . During an engagement with " enemy " cruisers during Fleet Problem IX on 16 April 1930 , the ship was ruled to have been knocked out by the exercise ' s umpires . Three years later , during Fleet Problem XIV , " Milwaukee " was spotted by fighters from the aircraft carrier and sunk by some of the opposing cruisers . In 1933 , the ship was assigned to Cruiser Division 3 of the Battle Fleet . After the Panay Incident in December 1937 , " Milwaukee " made a cruise through the Western Pacific from January to April 1938 . While steaming north of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico on 14 February 1939 , " Milwaukee " discovered the deepest place in the Atlantic Ocean . The spot — which has a depth of — is now known as the " Milwaukee Deep " . By January 1941 , the ship had returned to Cruiser Division 2 which was now assigned to the Caribbean Patrol , commanded by Rear Admiral Jonas H . Ingram , part of the Neutrality Patrol established after the war began . Cruiser Division 2 was ordered to patrol the Atlantic between Trinidad , the Cape Verde Islands and the eastern bulge of Brazil in April , although " Milwaukee " was not immediately available . The ship , escorted by the destroyers and , began her first patrol in May , making a port visit to Recife , Brazil on 1 June , before returning to San Juan , Puerto Rico . These patrols continued in the same manner for most of the rest of the year . World War II . South Atlantic . " Milwaukee " , commanded by Captain Forrest B . Royal , was being overhauled in the Brooklyn Navy Yard when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December . The ship escorted a convoy to the Caribbean from New York on 31 December and then escorted eight troop transports from the Panama Canal to the Society Islands . She rejoined the South Atlantic Patrol Force upon her return and spend the next two years making patrols between Brazil and the African coast . On 19 May she received an SOS from the Brazilian cargo ship SS " Commandante Lyra " , which had been torpedoed by the off the coast of Brazil . " Milwaukee " found the freighter abandoned , burning , and listing to port . She rescued 25 survivors from their lifeboats , including the ship ' s master . Reinforced by the cruiser ' s sister and the destroyer , the fires were brought under control , cargo was jettisoned to lighten the ship , and " Commandante Lyra " was towed to Fortaleza , Brazil . Rear Admiral O . M . Read assumed command of Cruiser Division 2 in October and hoisted his flag aboard " Milwaukee " . On 21 November , " Milwaukee " , her sister and the destroyer " Somers " intercepted the German blockade runner . When " Somers " had closed to , the German ship scuttled herself to prevent capture . " Milwaukee " rescued 62 of the ship ' s crew . On 2 May 1943 , while the ship was under repair at Recife , her crew helped to fight a fire on the oil tanker SS " Livingston Roe " . " Milwaukee " and " Omaha " collided on 31 May off the coast of Brazil , although the extent of the damage is not known . The ship sailed for the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 8 February 1944 , preparatory to her temporary transfer to the Soviet Union in lieu of Italian ships allotted after the Italian surrender that could not be delivered . She escorted a convoy to Belfast , Northern Ireland on 8 March before forming part of the escort of Convoy JW 58 during her voyage to " Murmansk " beginning on 29 March . Soviet service . On 20 April , the ship was transferred on loan to the Soviet Northern Fleet in Murmansk . She was commissioned in the Soviet Navy as " Murmansk " and performed convoy and patrol duty in the Arctic Ocean for the remainder of the war . Afterward , she became a training ship and participated in the 1948 fleet maneuvers . The Soviets returned the ship on 16 March 1949 and " Milwaukee " was sold for scrap to American Shipbreakers , Inc . , in Wilmington , Delaware on 10 December .