Immediately after the months-long Guadalcanal campaign ended in February 1943, the remaining ships of the class would go through major overhauls to lessen top-heaviness due to new electrical and radar systems and advanced anti-aircraft weaponry.

After taking on a capacity load of stores and fuel at Norfolk, Virginia, the heavy cruiser proceeded north to Annapolis, Maryland, where she embarked the remains of the former Japanese Ambassador to the United States, the late Hiroshi Saito, for the voyage to Japan, a gesture that expressed America's gratitude to the Japanese for returning the body of the late United States Ambassador to Japan, Edgar Bancroft, in the cruiser Tama in 1926.

Accompanied by the destroyers Hibiki, Sagiri, Akatsuki, Astoria steamed slowly into Yokohama harbor on 17 April, United States ensign at half-mast and the Japanese flag at the fore.

Captain Turner, for his part, pleased Ambassador to Japan Joseph C. Grew by his diplomatic role in the proceedings; the naval attaché in Tokyo, Captain Harold Medberry Bemis, later recorded that the choice of Turner for that delicate mission was "particularly fortunate...." In grateful appreciation of American sympathy and courtesy a pagoda was later presented by Hirosi Saito's wife and child.

After receiving Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet, on board for a courtesy call that morning, Astoria put to sea for Hong Kong in the afternoon.

When she arrived at Guam early on the morning of 21 May, the heavy cruiser was called upon to assist Penguin and Robert L. Barnes in their successful effort to refloat the grounded Army transport U. S. Grant.

Soon thereafter, Astoria joined the search for the noted author and adventurer Richard Halliburton, and the companions with whom he had attempted the voyage from Hong Kong to San Francisco in his Chinese junk, Sea Dragon.

During her refit, she received quadruple-mount 1.1 in (28 mm)/75 cal anti-aircraft guns and a pedestal fitted at her foremast in anticipation of the imminent installation of the new air-search radar.

Once the task force reached open sea, Lexington's air group and the 18 Vought SB2U-3 Vindicators from Marine Scout Bombing Squadron 231 (VMSB-231) bound for Midway landed on the carrier's flight deck.

Its ferry mission canceled, TF 12 spent the next few days searching an area to the southwest of Oahu, "with instructions to intercept and destroy any enemy ship in the vicinity of Pearl Harbor...." The cruiser reentered Pearl Harbor with the Lexington force on 13 December, but she returned to sea on the 16th to rendezvous with and screen a convoy, the oiler Neches and the seaplane tender Tangier – the abortive Wake Island relief expedition.

After a brief respite at Pearl Harbor, Astoria returned to sea on 19 January with TF 11 – the carrier Lexington, escorted by heavy cruisers Chicago and Minneapolis, and nine destroyers – to "conduct an offensive patrol northeast of the Kingman Reef-Christmas Island line."

On the afternoon of the 21st, however, TF 11 received orders to rendezvous with Neches, and then to conduct an air raid on Wake Island, followed by a surface bombardment "if practicable."

On 16 February, Astoria put back to sea for what proved to be an extended cruise in the southwestern Pacific with TF 17, built around the carrier Yorktown and comprising the heavy cruiser Louisville, destroyers Sims, Anderson, Hammann and Walke, and the oiler Guadalupe, all under the command of Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher.

Late on 8 March, Brown and his staff decided to shift objectives and attack the two new enemy beachheads by launching planes from the Gulf of Papua in the south and sending them across the width of New Guinea to the targets on the northern coast.

Astoria, meanwhile, joined a surface force made up of heavy cruisers Chicago, Louisville, and HMAS Australia, and destroyers Anderson, Hammann, Hughes, and Sims under the command of Rear Admiral John G. Crace, that Brown detached to operate in the waters off Rossel Island in the Louisiade Archipelago.

They secured the carriers' right flank during their operations in the Gulf of Papua; they shielded Port Moresby from any new enemy thrust; and they covered the arrival of Army troops at Nouméa.

The delay, which also allowed the United States Navy time to marshal its forces, coupled with the dispatch of Japanese carriers led to the confrontation in the Coral Sea.

At sea continuously since 16 February, Astoria began to run low on provisions, so Rear Admiral Fletcher detached her to replenish from Bridge at Nouméa along with Portland, Hughes and Walke.

About this time, intelligence reports convinced Admiral Chester Nimitz that the enemy sought to take Port Moresby, on the southeastern coast of New Guinea, and he resolved to thwart those designs.

Admiral Fletcher first considered sending Astoria and Chester to finish off the crippled ships at Tulagi with surface gunnery, but demurred and kept his force concentrated in anticipation of further action.

The Japanese aviators concentrated almost exclusively on the American carriers as the two drew apart with their respective screening ships, ultimately putting some 6 to 8 mi (9.7 to 12.9 km) of ocean between them by the end of the battle.

At about 1245, Lexington – heavily damaged though apparently in satisfactory condition afloat and underway – suffered severe internal explosions that rang her death knell.

Once rescue operations were completed, and Lexington's end was hastened by torpedoes from Phelps, TF 17 began a slow retirement from the Coral Sea, having suffered heavy losses but also having inflicted a decisive strategic defeat on the Japanese by barring the Port Moresby invasion.

One of the three hit the carrier's stack, causing fires in her uptakes that literally smoked Rear Admiral Fletcher and his staff out of flag plot.

That night, the heavy cruiser retired east ward with the rest of the task force to await dawn, while a single destroyer, Hughes, stood by the stricken carrier.

During the early summer of 1942, she completed repairs and alterations at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard and carried out training in the Hawaiian operating area.

On the night of 8/9 August, a Japanese force of seven cruisers and a destroyer under Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa sneaked by Savo Island and attacked the American ships.

The Japanese came through the channel to the west of Savo Island and opened fire on Chicago – HMAS Canberra force first at about 0140 on the morning of the 9th, hitting both cruisers with torpedoes and shells.

Called away at 1000, Hopkins and Wilson departed, but the heavy cruiser received word that Buchanan was on the way to assist in battling the fires and that Alchiba was coming to tow the ship.

[4] The wreck of USS Astoria was discovered in early 2015 during a sonar mapping project of Iron Bottom Sound led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.