USS Des Moines (CA-134)

Through her Mediterranean services Des Moines contributed significantly to the success of the 6th Fleet in representing American power and interests in the countries of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and the Near East. She made this contribution through such activities as her participation in NATO Mediterranean exercises; her call to seldom-visited Rijeka, Yugoslavia, in December 1950 and Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, in May 1960, and to many other ports as a regular feature of her schedule; her cruising in the eastern Atlantic during the wake of the Suez Crisis of 1956; and service on patrol and as control center for American forces in the Lebanon crisis of 1958.
After decommissioning in 1961 she was mothballed in the South Boston Naval Annex and eventually laid up in the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility at Philadelphia, where she remained until 2006. After an attempt to turn her into a museum ship in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, failed, she was towed to Brownsville, Texas, for scrapping, and arrived there 7 September. By July 2007, she had been completely broken up. Her status officially changed to "disposed of by scrapping, dismantling" on 16 August 2007. Sister ship USS Newport News was scrapped in New Orleans in 1993. The third Des Moines class ship, USS Salem is a museum ship in Quincy, Massachusetts.