Top Photo: The USS Concord off Balboa in the Panama Canal Zone on January 6, 1943. Courtesy Army Signal Corps

Built by William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia as the US Navy’s seventh Omaha class light cruiser, the Concord first entered naval service on November 3, 1923. Named for the Massachusetts town famed for the American Revolution’s “shot heard round the world,” the Concord and her class were the oldest cruisers still in active service at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Outclassed by the younger Brooklyn class cruisers and their successors, the aging Concord had nonetheless entered the war in February 1942, escorting convoys and surveying islands until an onboard fuel explosion on October 7, 1943, pulled her off the line for critically needed repairs. It was not until March 1944 that the resurgent Concord and her crew set sail for the far north to join the war effort in the Aleutian Islands.

The USS Concord while in the Aleutian Islands during 1944 and 1945. Courtesy United States Navy

By spring 1944, the Aleutians were firmly back under American control. Bases had sprung up across many islands in the effort to retake the North American soil seized by the Japanese in mid-1942, and these northern forces still engaged in a steady stream of both naval and air attacks against the Japanese Kuril Islands despite the shifting battle planes. Even as a light cruiser, the Concord’s relatively heavy armament compared to other ships stationed in the Aleutians allowed her to play a vital role, destroying Japanese shipping and bombarding shore positions along the northernmost home islands to further strain the Japanese war effort. By mid-1945, the warship was operating out of Massacre Bay on the island of Attu, the very site from which American troops had landed in May 1943 to drive the Japanese back. It was from here that the Concord, complete with her “mascot” Minuteman statue presented by the citizens of her namesake, set sail on August 8, 1945, for the final bombardment mission of World War II.

The USS Concord's sister ship USS Raleigh in Attu’s Massacre Bay during June 1944, close to where the Concord set sail from in August 1945. Courtesy United States Navy

Assigned to Task Force 92, the Concord and her fellow warships were ordered to proceed across the Pacific and conduct anti-shipping sweeps of the Kuril Islands before bombarding several key targets in the island chain. Arriving off the islands on August 11, the ships of TF 92 broke out into four groups, with the USS Concord and vessels of Destroyer Division 108 ordered to carry out their sweep before bombarding the Japanese facilities at Suribachi Wan on the island of Paramushiro. Together the Concord and her escorts encountered six Japanese trawlers off the island of Onekotan, with all six targets reported sunk before the group advanced north towards Paramushiro.

The Minuteman statue affixed to the Concord's superstructure, with the ship’s scoreboard mounted below. Courtesy United States Navy

Having been delayed by an hour due to their attack on the Japanese trawlers, the Concord arrived off Suribachi Wan on August 12, 1945, and began her bombardment run at 7:39 p.m. local time. Opening fire alongside her fellow warships, the gunners aboard the Concord fired 538 main gun rounds into various targets before Commander Cyril Alfred Rumble called for his forces to cease firing. At least nine large fires were seen burning at various installations under the observation of gunnery officer Lieutenant Commander Daniel Brand. According to some accounts, what happened next was the result of a hang fire in the forward turret, with Brand wanting to clear the shell before the ship proceeded to sea. Others suggested the delayed firing was possibly intentional. Either way, roughly a minute after the other vessels had ceased fire at approximately 8:06 p.m. local time, one of the Concord’s forward turrets barked for a final time as the last salvo of the war.

Left: An aerial view of Paramushiro Island taken on July 27, 1945, just before the last actions of Task Force 92. Courtesy National Archives. Right: A Japanese trawler similar to those encountered by the Concord and her escorting destroyers. Courtesy United States Navy
 

As the vessel and her Task Force retired home to the Aleutians, an American bomber bearing a tow target flew from Attu flew to join the formation. According to Chief Gunner’s Mate Ben Kaiser, news of the Japanese surrender broke amidst the gunnery practice, nearly causing the excited 40mm Bofors crews to shoot down the hapless airplane. Pulling into Adak, the Concord would receive orders on August 31 to proceed to Japan, becoming the second American capital ship to enter the Tsugaru Strait on September 8. She and her crew stayed in Northern Japan for only a short time before beginning a 10,200-mile journey home.

Left: An aerial view of Paramushiro’s Suribachi Wan taken in January 1945, with the area’s airfield visible in the center. Courtesy National Archives. Right: One of the Concord's turret gun crews in 1945. Courtesy United States Navy
 

Though her age and obsolescence had inevitably marked the Concord for scrapping, she saw several commemorations both in her final days and beyond. She visited Boston on October 27, 1945, as part of a Navy Day visit, coming as close to her namesake city as possible to celebrate the end of the war. Her turret was removed in early 1946 and slated for preservation, with the Minuteman statue going on to serve aboard future Concord namesakes. Her crew gathered for annual reunions in the decades after the war, proudly stating at each event how their vessel fired the war’s last salvo. And on November 19, 2016, her bell was officially unveiled in Concord alongside the city’s memorials to those who lost their lives in both World Wars, linking together the first shot of one war and the last of another.

A poster for the October 1945 Navy Day events. Courtesy United States Navy