"SCOUTING FORCE"

• On 1 April 1931 the U.S. Fleet had been reorganized into Battle, Scouting, Submarine and Base Forces; provided for the appointment of type commanders for each type of ship and for aircraft, and designated the aviation type commands in the Battle, Scouting and Base Forces as Commander Aircraft (name of Force).

At the beginning of 1932, the Augusta and the other cruisers of the Scouting Force reassembled in Hampton Roads, whence they departed on 8 January on their way to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Augusta conducted training evolutions with the Scouting Force in the vicinity of Guantanamo Bay until 18 February, when the force headed for the Panama Canal on its way to the eastern Pacific to participate in Fleet Problem XIII. She arrived in San Pedro, Calif., on 7 March but returned to sea three days later to execute the fleet problem. During the maneuvers, Augusta and her colleagues in Scouting Force squared off against Battle Force in defense of three simulated "atolls" located at widely separated points on the west coast. The exercises afforded the Fleet training in strategic scouting and an opportunity to practice defending and attacking a convoy.

Though the fleet problem ended on 18 March, Augusta and the rest of Scouting Force did not return to the Atlantic at its conclusion as was normal. In a gesture that presaged Roosevelt's retention of the Fleet at Pearl Harbor in 1940 after Fleet Problem XXI, the Hoover Administration kept the Fleet concentrated on the west coast throughout 1932 in the forlorn hope that it might restrain Japanese aggression in China. In fact, Scouting Force was still on the west coast almost a year later when the time came for Fleet Problem XIV in February 1933, and the Roosevelt Administration, which took office in March, proceeded to keep it there indefinitely. Consequently, Augusta continued to operate in the eastern Pacific until relieved of duty as Scouting Force's flagship late in October 1933. The heavy cruiser sailed for China on 20 October.

FLAGSHIP - Asiatic Fleet

In November 1933 the Augusta joined the Asiatic Fleet as flagship with the future Admiral Chester Nimitz in command. A photo shows the ship approaching Pearl Harbor in 1933 to take up its new assignment, and another photo shows Capt. Nimitz onboard the Augusta with his fellow officers.

Steaming via the "Great Circle" route (the Northern Pacific) from Seattle to Shanghai, Augusta moored in the Whangpoo River, at Shanghai, on the morning of 9 November 1933. That afternoon, Admiral Frank B. Upham, Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet (CinCAF), broke his flag on board the newly arrived heavy cruiser, and his old flagship, Houston (CA-30), sailed for the United States, trailing a long homeward bound pennant in her wake.

Soon after she broke Admiral Upham's flag and Houston sailed for home, Augusta proceeded south from Shanghai in December 1933, and, over the next few months, operated in the Philippines interspersing training with her yearly overhaul at Cavite and Olongapo.