to be quiet for Omaha. Escorting the stores ship regularly out of Recife, and patrolling the southern Atlantic with her sister ships , Memphis, , and the destroyer , she did not come in contact with any enemy ships or submarines or the aftermath of their attacks. The only damage she took that year occurred 30 April 1943, while she was changing stations on formation, Milwaukee struck Omahas starboard bow. The collision destroyed one of her paravanes and rupturing some plating, which caused some flooding. Omahas damage control party shored up one hole with two mattresses and were able to stop the leak. One compartment was completely flooded with another compartment requiring pumping out every two hours. On Milwaukee, the 6-inch guns and torpedo tubes on her port side were unserviceable. Several holes had opened up along her port side that were above the main deck, along with some leaks under the waterline from damage to plates and rivets. Milwaukee also lost her No.3 main circulation pump. The damage was determined not to be serious enough to halt their mission and the two cruisers, after completing their patrol, put into Rio de Janeiro for the needed repairs at the Brazilian Navy Yard. Sinking of Rio Grande and Burgenland Omahas time of relatively ordinary operations came to an end very early in 1944. While patrolling out of Recife, with Jouett on 4 January, one of Omahas aircraft spotted a ship about northeast of the Brazilian coast. Omaha challenged the vessel at 10:20, with one of her searchlights, that produced no response from the unknown contact. Lookouts were able to spot two guns mounted on the ship's bow though, and soon after a large cloud of heavy smoke was observed coming from the stern of the ship, indicating that her crew were probably in the process of scuttling the ship to avoid capture. As Omaha pulled along the unknown ship's port side she began to fire with her starboard battery as Jouett also began firing. The ship's crew were then observed attempting to escape off her stern in lifeboats. Omaha crew tried to force the sailors back aboard with machine gun fire, but it became clear that the vessel was not salvageable. Omaha began firing on the vessel again, which soon sank by her stern. With fears that this surface action may have alerted enemy U-boats in the area, Omaha and Jouett