USS Duluth, a 10,000-ton Cleveland class light cruiser, was built at Newport News, Virginia. Commissioned in September 1944 she spent the rest of 1944 and the first three months of 1945 on shakedown and training duties along the U.S. East Coast. Duluth steamed to the Pacific in April 1945 and arrived in the war zone in late May to begin World War II combat operations. Her bow was damaged in a typhoon on 5 June, but she was repaired during the next month and served in a screening role during the final three weeks of carrier air strikes on the Japanese Home Islands. Following the enemy's mid-August decision to surrender, the cruiser continued to escort aircraft carriers as they covered the initial occupation of Japan.

In October 1945 Duluth recrossed the Pacific to the U.S. West Coast, but deployed back to the Far East during the first nine months of 1946. She again cruised in Western Pacific waters between February 1947 and May 1948, visiting Australia, Truk, Guam and the Philippines, as well as operating off the coast of China. In the summer of 1948 the ship served on training missions in the Eastern Pacific and, early in 1949 was active off Alaska. Decommissioned in June 1949, Duluth spent the next ten years in the Reserve Fleet. She was stricken from the Navy list in January 1960 and sold for scrapping in September of that year.