Attending the commissioning ceremonies were Rear Admiral Yates Stirling Jr., Commandant of the New York Naval Yard and former Assistant Navy Secretary Jahncke.

Under Captain Reed's command that ended on 30 August 1935, New Orleans made a shakedown Transatlantic crossing to Great Britain and Scandinavia in May and June 1934.

New Orleans made ports of call and was greeted by thousands at Stockholm, Sweden, Copenhagen, Denmark, Amsterdam, Netherlands and Portsmouth, England, returning to New York on 28 June.

She exercised off New England into 1935, then visited her namesake city at the end of March while en route to join United States Fleet Scouting Force Cruiser Division 6 (CruDiv 6) based out of San Pedro, and operating along the coast of California and the eastern Pacific.

The crew was forced to break the locks on the ammunition ready boxes as the keys couldn't be located, and because the ship was taking power from the dock, the 5"/25 cal AA gun had to be aimed and fired manually.

It was this joint force, together with a cruiser-destroyer group, which won the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7–8 May, driving back a southward thrust of the Japanese which threatened Australia and New Zealand and their seaborne life lines.

Fighting off enemy air attacks on 24–25 August, the New Orleans aided the U.S. Marine Corps beachhead on Guadalcanal, as a Japanese landing expedition was turned back in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.

Oh my God, all those guys I went through boot camp with – all gone" [5] Damage control parties managed to repair the ship enough to sail to Tulagi Harbor near daybreak on 1 December.

Eleven days later, New Orleans sailed stern first, to avoid sinking, to Cockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney, Australia, arriving on 24 December.

On 7 March 1943, she left Sydney for Puget Sound Navy Yard, sailing backward the entire voyage, where a new bow was fitted with the use of Minneapolis' No.

All battle damage was repaired and she was given a major refit involving the reducing of the forward superstructure along the lines of other pre-war cruisers, adding new air-search and surface search radars, as well as numerous 20mm and 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns.

Returning to Pearl Harbor on 31 August for combat training, New Orleans next joined a cruiser-destroyer force to bombard Wake Island on 5–6 October, repulsing a Japanese torpedo-plane attack.

While air strikes were flown, New Orleans, with other warships circled the atoll to catch escaping ships; the task force's combined gunfire sank a light cruiser, a destroyer, a trawler, and a submarine chaser.

The carriers, with New Orleans in escort, attacked targets in the Carolines late in March, then in April, sailed south to support Allied landings at Hollandia (currently known as Jayapura), New Guinea.

She bombarded Saipan on 15–16 June, then joined the screen protecting carriers as they prepared to meet the Japanese Mobile Fleet in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

After re-provisioning at Manus, the task force assaulted Okinawa, Formosa, and Northern Luzon, destroying Japanese land-based aviation which otherwise would have threatened the landings on Leyte on 20 October.

Task Force 34 was detached to finish off several of the crippled Japanese ships with gunfire; New Orleans and three other cruisers sank the light carrier Chiyoda and the destroyer Hatsuzuki.

[6][7] After replenishing at Ulithi, New Orleans guarded carriers during raids throughout the Philippines in preparation for the invasion of Mindoro, then late in December sailed for a Mare Island Navy Yard overhaul, followed by training in Hawaii.

After nearly two months on station, she sailed to replenish and repair in the Philippines, and was at Subic Bay when hostilities ceased in the Pacific War.

She covered the internment of Japanese ships at Tsingtao, the evacuation of liberated Allied prisoners-of-war, and the landing of troops in Korea and China.

There, she was decommissioned on 10 February 1947 and lay in reserve until struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 March 1959 and sold for scrapping on 22 September to Boston Metals Company, Baltimore, Maryland.