"Swayback Maru"

A treaty ship laid down in 1927, she is the oldest heavy cruiser the U.S. has. So bare of streamlined beauty is her ungainly silhouette that Correspondent Bob Casey (Torpedo Junction) fondly fastened the nickname "Swayback Maru" on her when the censors would not let him reveal her real name. Because she never got hit hard enough to be sent home for repairs, she never got much publicity. But many a high-ranking Navy man was willing to concede by last week that on performance the Salt Lake City was the No. 1 U.S. cruiser of the war.

The Salt Lake City has probably been in more engagements than any other warship. Jap communiques have "sunk" her twice and left her burning once. They must have known better, for no sailorman could fail to identify her at a glance.

Somewhere in the Pacific last week Swayback was still serving. Among her honors she counted last year's red "E" (for first in engineering performance among the heavy cruisers of the Pacific Fleet), a tribute to her longtime chief engineer, Commander Theodore Kobey of Bisbee, Ariz. The morale of the Salt Lake City's 1,000-man crew has been called the best in the Fleet.

Moment of Sentiment. For tall, trim Captain Ellis Zacharias, as he left her for Washington after five combat actions to become Assistant Chief of Naval Intelligence, the crew of the Salt Lake City had a handsome testimonial. Their scroll recalled old Swayback's great fighting career, the raid on the Marshalls, the attack on Jap-held Wake, the days & nights at "general quarters" when the enemy was hammering at them with bomb and torpedo. "We say farewell to you with a deep sense of personal loss," it concluded.

Under Zacharias the Salt Lake City took part in the first offensive U.S. action of the war by shelling Wotje in the Marshalls. Three weeks later old Swayback poured avenging hell into Wake, then went on to Marcus Island, only 1,000 miles from Tokyo, to protect a carrier whose planes set the Japs to jittering in their own backyard.

Moment of Glory. But the Salt Lake City rose to her most heroic moment for a new skipper, Captain Ernest G. ("Shorty") Small, on the night of Oct. 11-12. That night she was hunting destroyers which had been reinforcing the Japs on Guadalcanal. She found more: six cruisers, six destroyers, a transport and auxiliaries. First, her ten guns set a light cruiser ablazing. Twenty rounds from her crack batteries were enough to finish a heavy cruiser, blowing up its entire midsection. Other U.S. warcraft and the Salt Lake City joined fire to sink one of the auxiliaries. Then the Salt Lake City returned to her first target, the damaged light cruiser, and pumped more salvos into her.

By that time the light cruiser Boise had been badly hit by a Jap heavy cruiser; she was in flames. Shorty Small did not hesitate. He sailed the Salt Lake City in front of the Boise, though it meant silhouetting the old lady against the Boise's flaming wreckage. The Salt Lake City's first salvo silenced the Jap. Four more salvos of 8-in. shells sank the enemy ship. The Boise was saved. Old Swayback proudly escorted her from the battle area.

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