USS Vicksburg, a 10,000-ton Cleveland class light cruiser built at Newport News, Virginia, was commissioned in June 1944. In October-December of that year, following shakedown in Chesapeake Bay and the West Indies, she served as a training ship in the Long Island Sound area. The cruiser went to the Pacific early in 1945. In February and March she provided naval gunfire support for the U.S. Marines as they landed on Iwo Jima and fought a hard and bloody campaign against the island's defenders. She escorted the fast carriers carriers during their mid-March raids against Kyushu, taking part in several actions against Japanese aircraft. Vicksburg resumed her bombardment role during the Okinawa operation that began in late March and spent more than two months in the "Kamikaze" infested waters around the Ryukyus. Late in June, after completing her work at Okinawa, the cruiser supported minesweeping operations in the China Sea. When Japan capitulated in mid-August 1945, she was sent from the Philippines to the former enemy's home waters to provide offshore cover for the surrender ceremonies that took place on 2 September.

Staying briefly in Japanese waters as the occupation effort expanded, Vicksburg next went to Okinawa, where she took aboard a large number of servicemen for transportation back to the United States. She arrived at San Francisco, California, in October and served along the West Coast for the rest of 1945, all of 1946 and part of 1947. Decommissioned at the end of June 1947, USS Vicksburg was assigned to the Pacific Reserve Fleet until October 1962, when she was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register. She was sold for scrapping in August 1964.