Ordered by the US Navy on June 14, 1943, USS Salem (CA 139) was laid down on July 4, 1945 at the Bethlehem Steel Company's Quincy Yard in Quincy, MA and launched on 25 March, 1947. She was commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on May 14, 1949.

USS Salem served a distinguished ten-year career as flagship of the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and the Second Fleet in the Atlantic. Although Salem never saw combat, her very presence served as a stimulus for peace during those troubled times that came to be called the Cold War. The USS Salem was decommissioned on January 30, 1959 and was sent to her birthplace, Quincy, Massachusetts, in October 1994. She now serves as the United States Naval and Shipbuilding Museum.

In August of 1953 there were 113 recorded earthquakes in Greece. The worst of these was on August 12th, when a quake measuring 7.2 on the surface wave magnitude scale shook the Ionian Island region. With no medical facilities of any consequence, ships from several navies sprang into action. The largest of these ships was the USS Salem.

While no record exists of the number of civilians she treated over the course of her 4 day stay, the number is estimated to be well over a thousand, and of those thousand many suffered mortal injuries.

Don DeCristofaro, co-founder of the Greater Boston Paranormal Associates or the GBPA, leads investigations on board the extremely haunted USS Salem and has appeared on "Most Terrifying with Jason Hawes" and an upcoming episode of "Kindred Spirits" called "Deadly Depths" on February 6, 2021 on Discovery+.