USS Pasadena, a 10,000-ton Cleveland class light cruiser, was built at Quincy, Massachusetts. Commissioned in June 1944, she went to the Pacific in the Fall of that year to join the war against Japan. From mid-November 1944 until the end of the fighting in August 1945, she escorted aircraft carriers as they hit targets in the Philippines area, the South China Sea, the Ryukyus and the Japanese Home Islands. In February-May 1945, Pasadena also provided gunfire support during the difficult campaigns to capture Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The cruiser was present in Tokyo Bay when Japan formally surrendered on 2 September.

Pasadena remained in Japanese waters for the rest of 1945 and the first few weeks of 1946, supporting occupation activities. After overhaul on the U.S. West Coast, she served in the Eastern and Central Pacific for two years, taking part in training and readiness operations. The cruiser deployed to the Far East between October 1948 and May 1949, a period of rising tension as Communist forces neared the end of their long fight to control China. Pasadena completed her active service with local operations off the West Coast and began inactiviation preparations in September 1949. She was decommissioned at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in January 1950 to begin two decades in the Pacific Reserve Fleet. USS Pasadena was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in December 1970 and sold for scrapping in July 1972.