A very busy slip at the Bethelhem Steel Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts on 29 December 1952. The command ship USS Northampton (CLC-1) is taking up most of the space, but two Mitscher class destroyer leaders have been squeezed in. USS Willis A. Lee Is visible in the foreground with USS Wilkinson(DL-5) in the background. USS Northampton was originally laid down in 1944 as a heavy cruiser of the Oregon City class. After work was suspended in 1945, the incomplete cruiser sat idle for a few years until it was decided to convert the cruiser into a command ship. On 1 July 1948, work resumed and Northampton saw herself equipped with powerful electronics as well as command and control equipment. Commissioned on 7 March 1953, the new command cruiser would serve for nearly two decades in a variety of roles including command ship, communications relay, test ship, and even an emergency command center for the government.

Tugboats move the cruiser USS Worcester (CL-144) to the pier on 26 May 1959 at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Worcester had been decommissioned on 19 December 1958 and was joining her sister USS Roanoke (CL-145) which had been decommissioned earlier on 31 October 1958.