USS Columbia, a 10,000-ton Cleveland class light cruiser built at Camden, New Jersey, was commissioned in late July 1942. Following shakedown and training in the Western Atlantic, she went to the South Pacific late in 1942, in time to participate in the final phases of the Guadalcanal Campaign. In late January 1943, she was one of the U.S. ships present during the Battle of Rennell Island. Columbia conducted patrol and bombardment missions in the Solomon Islands area during the next several months, as the Allies prepared for and executed the campaign to seize bases up the island chain from Guadalcanal. At the beginning of November 1943, Columbia shelled enemy targets ashore in support of landings on Bougainville and, on the night of 2 November, took part in the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay. She remained in the area to support further landings in the Green Islands during February 1944 and Emirau Island in March.

Following overhaul in the United States, Columbia returned to the war zone to cover amphibious assaults on Peleliu in September 1944 and Leyte in October. On the night of 24-25 October, she participated in the Battle of Surigao Strait, the final major gun and torpedo action of the Pacific War. Her operations in the Philippines continued in December, with the landings at Mindoro, and January 1945, with the Lingayen Gulf invasion. On 6 and 9 January, while supporting the latter operation, she was near-missed by one Japanese suicide plane and hit by two others, causing serious damage to the ship and heavy casualties among her crew.

The cruiser was under repair and in transit until June 1945, when she arrived in the Western Pacific to participate in final operations against the Japanese. During that month and the next she took part in the Borneo landings and in anti-shipping sweeps in the East China Sea. After Japan's capitulation in mid-August, Columbia supported occupation efforts in the Central Pacific and transported war veterans back to the U.S. She served on training duty during the post-war era's first year, but was decommissioned in November 1946. USS Columbia was part of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet until 1959, when she was sold for scrapping.