HOUSTON CL 81

Ship Name and Designation History

This section lists the names and designations that the ship had during its lifetime. The list is in chronological order.

Cleveland Class Light Cruiser Keel Laid 4 August 1941 as VICKSBURG Renamed 12 October 1942 - Launched 19 June 1943 USS HOUSTON CL-81 Commissioned 20 December 1943 Heavily damaged by Aerial Torpedoes 14-16 October 1944 off Formosa Reached Ulithi Atoll 27 October 1944 and patched Decommissioned 15 December 1947 Struck from Naval Register 1 March 1959 Sold 1 June 1961 for scrap

Naval Covers

This section lists active links to the pages displaying covers associated with the ship. There should be a separate set of pages for each name of the ship (for example, Bushnell AG-32 / Sumner AGS-5 are different names for the same ship so there should be one set of pages for Bushnell and one set for Sumner). Covers should be presented in chronological order (or as best as can be determined).

Since a ship may have many covers, they may be split among many pages so it doesn't take forever for the pages to load. Each page link should be accompanied by a date range for covers on that page.

1. USS Houston CL-81 Covers Page 1     (1943-47)

 

Postmarks

This section lists examples of the postmarks used by the ship. There should be a separate set of postmarks for each name and/or commissioning period. Within each set, the postmarks should be listed in order of their classification type. If more than one postmark has the same classification, then they should be further sorted by date of earliest known usage.

A postmark should not be included unless accompanied by a close-up image and/or an image of a cover showing that postmark. Date ranges MUST be based ONLY ON COVERS IN THE MUSEUM and are expected to change as more covers are added.
 
>>> If you have a better example for any of the postmarks, please feel free to replace the existing example.

 

Postmark Type --- Killer Bar Text	Postmark Date	Thumbnail Link To Postmark Image	Thumbnail Link To Cover Image

 

Locy Type 2(n) USCS Postmark Catalog Illus. H-82a

1946-10-27

USCS Postmark Catalog lists this as Oct 27, 1945 - but was clearly used in 1946 as well

 

Locy Type 2(n)

1947-01-10

Note:

 

Locy Type 2(n)

1947-08-06

Note:

 

Locy Type 2z

1944-03-31

Note:

 

Locy Type 9efu

1946-06-12

Mark from back of cover

 

Locy Type RECD USCS Postmark Catalog Illus. H-82

1947-08-27

From the Richard F. Hoffner collection.

 

Other Information

USS HOUSTON received three battle stars for her World War II service

NAMESAKE - Named in Honor of USS Houston CA-30 lost 28 February 1942 during the Battle of Java Sea.

 

---

 

If you have images or information to add to this page, then either contact the Curator or edit this page yourself and add it. See Editing Ship Pages for detailed information on editing this page.

 

---

Copyright 2024 Naval Cover Museum