Falling in love can happen in a snap. Dave Hatzenbuehler knows this from the way he responded nearly a half-century ago upon noticing a big, brooding presence in San Diego Bay.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d caught sight of a Navy cruiser, a famously dynamic type of ship that had been turning heads since the 1880s. This one was the USS Long Beach, a muscular brute measuring 721 feet from stem to stern. It also was the world\u2019s first nuclear-powered missile cruiser.<\/p>\n
![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/SUT-L-goodbye-cruisers-500.jpg\")
On a visit to San Diego in 1978, Dave Hatzenbuehler looked out at San Diego Bay and saw a 721-foot cruiser so sleek and powerful he knew in an instant he would join the Navy and try to get on one of the great battle wagons of the day which he did. (Dave Hatzenbuehler)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so powerful and sleek and beautiful,\u201d recalled Hatzenbuehler, who was vacationing in San Diego at the time. \u201cI joined the Navy as soon as I went home to Dallas. I wanted to be on a ship like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t a singular response, or a random one.<\/p>\n
As the Navy nears its 250th anniversary in October, there\u2019s a lot of reminiscing going on about the fleet. Much of it involves cruisers \u2014 renowned for shielding aircraft carriers, attacking distant enemies, flushing submarines from the deep, and roaming the seas as lone wolfs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were always there to protect us when we were flying back to the carriers,\u201d said Jack Allen of Escondido, who flew F-8 Crusaders during the Vietnam War in the 1960s. \u201cCruisers had a way of picking threats out of the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now is also a bittersweet moment for current and former sailors in San Diego, the largest Navy town on the West Coast.<\/p>\n
Cruisers helped the Navy shift from sail to steam propulsion, helped end the war in the Pacific and kept the Soviets at bay during the Cold War. But they\u2019ve reached old age and will soon vanish from the fleet after more than 140 years of service. Replacing many of them are Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, a new type of ship whose versatility, firepower and air defense are regarded as the Navy\u2019s best.<\/p>\n
These days, just nine\u00a0of the 27 Ticonderoga-class cruisers commissioned during the Cold War era are still in service. That number will drop to three in 2027 and zero in 2029, the Navy says.<\/p>\n
Among the next to go will be the 36-year-old USS Princeton<\/a>, which is about to return to San Diego after helping shield the carrier USS Carl Vinson during a nine-month deployment. San Diego\u2019s other cruiser, USS Cape St. George, is expected to be one of the last to retire.<\/p>\n The exact timing of the shutdown isn\u2019t clear. The Navy is struggling to conduct the maintenance its ships need to go to sea, which could further limit its use of the cruisers in the little time they have left.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a quality problem.<\/p>\n A recent effort to modernize 11 cruisers fell into disarray. Only three are expected to get complete upgrades, and they\u2019ll spend less time on patrol than forecast, according to a 2024 report<\/a> by the Government Accountability Office.<\/p>\n The project \u201cwasted\u201d $1.84 billion, the GAO said in unusually candid words.<\/p>\n This bothers many veterans, some of whom prefer to simply focus on the ships\u2019 storied past.<\/p>\n \u201cCruisers represented the pinnacle of naval power in the world,\u201d said Delbert Worrell of Ramona, who served on the USS Long Beach in the late 1970s. \u201cI\u2019m proud I served on one.\u201d<\/p>\n Cruisers date back to the 1880s, when the Navy introduced them as iron-hulled, steam-powered ships. They had a specific purpose: protect U.S. merchant vessels and explore national interests abroad.<\/p>\n The first cruiser to visit San Diego was the USS California (CA-6),<\/a> which arrived in 1907 and was later renamed after the city, just as the region was blooming into a Navy town.<\/p>\n Things literally took off in 1911. That was the year aviator Glenn Curtiss flew a seaplane from North Island on Coronado out into the harbor, where he landed in the water next to the cruiser USS Pennsylvania. The plane was hoisted aboard, then returned to the bay.<\/p>\n That\u00a0moment\u00a0suggested that planes had a place in the military. The Navy soon bought a Curtiss aircraft \u2014 a direct step toward the creation of aircraft carriers. Lumbering flattops soon appeared in ports like San Diego, and they needed escort ships.<\/p>\n Cruisers were perfect for the job. They were fast, highly maneuverable and regularly upgraded with a wide variety of weapons. They could defend and fight.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had guns, we had torpedoes, we had Harpoon missiles, we had Standard 1 missiles, we had ASROC missiles,\u201d said Hatzenbuehler, who served on the nuclear-powered USS Texas, along with other ships, from 1980 until 2003. \u201cWe had everything.\u201d<\/p>\n The cruiser\u2019s supremacy became especially evident in World War II, when more than 80 of the ships went into service, sinking and damaging dozens of enemy vessels.<\/p>\n Of particular note was the USS San Diego (CL-53)<\/a>, the second cruiser to carry that name. It earned 18 battle stars \u2014 commendations for participating in important campaigns.<\/p>\n The San Diego shielded the carrier USS Hornet during the Battle of Guadalcanal, helping turn the war in the Pacific in favor of allied forces. It was the first major Allied warship to enter Tokyo Bay when the war ended.<\/p>\n \u201cIt terms of sheer numbers, firepower and contributions, I think the cruisers \u2014 especially when you look at World War II \u2014 really played a vital role,\u201d said Kevin Sheehan, a historian at the Maritime Museum of San Diego.<\/p>\n But there were devastating losses along the way.<\/p>\n Components of Little Boy, the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima, were quietly delivered to Tinian Island in 1945 by the cruiser USS Indianapolis. Japan sank<\/a> the ship a short time later, killing 880 sailors and Marines.<\/p>\n These sorts of campaigns dredged up a lot of memories for naval author Kevin Eyer, a part-time San Diego resident who served on seven cruisers.<\/p>\n One of those ships stood out above others.<\/p>\n In August 1990, when Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait, a big supplier of oil to the U.S., Eyer was a combat systems officer on the cruiser USS Antietam, operating in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were directed to immediately go to the northern Persian Gulf, because the U.S. needed an adult in the room \u2014 which is how people thought about cruisers and their commanders,\u201d he said. \u201cWe got there and were alone, which was scary. We thought Iraq might fire Exocet cruise missiles at us.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we also had an edge \u2014 the AEGIS Combat System, which coordinated all of the weapons systems on the ship so that they seamlessly worked in concert. Iraq ended up not attacking us. But we had AEGIS. We had a way to fight, something that\u2019s always been true about cruisers.\u201d<\/p>\n The following months involved one of the largest military build-ups in U.S. history, partly due to growing concern that Iraq would attack Saudi Arabia, causing economic upheaval throughout the Middle East.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/SUT-L-Cruiser-Princeton-5.jpg\")
The guided missile cruiser USS Princeton maneuvers during a replenishment operation Oct. 19, 2001 just aft of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. The flattop was conducting missions in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. (Photo by Inez Lawson\/US Navy\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"Admiral](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/sut-l-cruisers-0810-01.jpg\")
Admiral William B. Caperton, USN, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet (center) with members of his staff on board USS San Diego in San Diego in 1916. The ship was previously named USS California (CA-6.) (Courtesy of Naval History and Heritage Command).<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/sut-l-goodbye-crusiers-01.jpg\")
The USS San Diego (CL-53) was 541-feet long and had a crew of nearly 800 people. Image courtesy of Naval History and Heritage Command.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/SUT-L-Cruiser-Bunker-Hill-3.jpg\")
A Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) leaves the deck of the guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill early Thursday, 20 March 2003, toward military targets in Iraq. AFP PHOTO\/US NAVY\/Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Richard Moore (RELEASED)<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/sut-l-goodbye-cruisers-03.jpg\")
The guided-missile cruiser USS Cape St. George (CG 71) underway in the Arabian Gulf. (US Navy)<\/p>\n