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The St. Louis and Helena were a slight modification of the Brooklyn-class light cruiser design, the main difference being the eight 5" guns mounted in four twin gunhouses instead of single open mounts. Upon commissioning, Helena was attached to the Pacific fleet and was in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, moored to 1010 dock. Three minutes into the attack, a torpedo passed under the minelayer Oglala outboard of Helena and hit the cruiser on the starboard side, flooding one engine room and one boiler room and killing 33 crew members. Helena’s flooding was quickly controlled, but Oglala had her welded plates sprung by the explosion and she capsized and sank.
Quickly repaired, Helena returned to combat during the Guadalcanal campaign, escorting convoys to the South Pacific and then screening carrier Wasp, rescuing almost 400 of her crew when that ship was sunk by three torpedoes from a submarine. On October 11, 1942 Helena was one of the ships in an American Task Force that intercepted a Japanese force in the Battle of Cape Esperance. Helena contributed to the sinking of the Japanese heavy cruiser Furutaka and destroyer Fubuki.
On November 12 - 13, 1942, Helena arrived at Guadalcanal escorting a convoy and was then involved in shooting down several enemy aircraft while the transports unloaded. Helena was immediately assigned as one of the cruisers in a hastily-assembled American task force sent to intercept another Japanese naval assault force, this one including two battleships. Helena emerged very lightly damaged from a hellish close range night battle that saw two American light cruisers and four destroyers sunk while the Japanese lost two destroyers and battleship Hiei. Again, Helena helped keep the Japanese from capturing Guadalcanal and its vital airfield.
In January of 1943, Helena was involved in bombarding Japanese positions on New Georgia at Munda and Vila Stanmore. In February, Helena’s spotting aircraft assisted in the sinking of the Japanese submarine RO-102 by Helena’s destroyer escorts. The ship had a short refit in Australia before reporting to the force escorting the transports scheduled to land the invasion forces for New Georgia at Rice Anchorage. Helena provided shore bombardment for the landing and then was called away upon reports of an approaching Japanese surface force of ten destroyers. At midnight the American force of three cruisers and four destroyers were off the northwest coast of New Georgia. Helena opened on the approaching destroyers in rapid-fire. Without the flashless powder of the other American cruisers, Helena’s fiery blasts made a perfect aiming point for the Japanese force. Helena was rapidly hit by three torpedoes, one blowing her bow off and the other two crushing her midsection. Helena jacknifed and sank. Of her crew of almost 900, 168 men went down with their ship. (DBoyer 2007)
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