USS Minneapolis, a 9950-ton New Orleans class heavy cruiser built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, was commissioned in May 1934. A few months later, she steamed to Europe for a shakedown cruise and in April 1935 was sent through the Panama Canal to take up her regular duties with the U.S. Fleet. Minneapolis conducted peacetime operations, generally in the Pacific, through the rest of the 1930s. In response to growing tensions with Japan, her base was changed to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1940.

Minneapolis was at sea nearby when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. For the next several months, she usually served with aircraft carriers, taking part in raids during February and March 1942, the air battles at Coral Sea in early May and at Midway in June, the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi in early August and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons later in that month. On August's last day, she assisted USS Saratoga after that carrier was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.

On 30 November 1942, Minneapolis was flagship of a cruiser-destroyer force that intercepted a group of Japanese destroyers off Guadalcanal. In the ensuing Battle of Tassafaronga, she was one of four U.S. cruisers knocked out of action by enemy torpedoes. With her bow blown off, and a large hole amidships crippling nearly all of her powerplant, Minneapolis needed emergency repairs locally, and more extensive work at the Pearl Harbor and Mare Island Navy Yards, before she could return to active service at the end of August 1943.

Thereafter, Minneapolis was fully engaged in Pacific combat operations, participating in raids and invasions throughout the war zone. Among her major undertakings were landings in the Gilberts in November 1943 and the Marshalls in January-February 1944, the Saipan invasion and the Battle of the Philippine sea in June, the capture of Guam in July and August, landings in the Palaus in September 1944 and at Leyte in October. During the latter operation, she took part in the war's last major gunfire battle, the Battle of Surigao Strait on 24-25 October 1944.

In the first four months of 1945, Minneapolis supported amphibious assaults in the Philippines and Okinawa. Later in the year, after the fighting had ended, she covered occupation operations in Korea and China, then helped bring U.S. service personnel home. The cruiser was inactive at Philadelphia from early 1946 until formally decommissioned in February 1947. Following a dozen years in "mothballs", USS Minneapolis was sold for scrapping in August 1959.