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| USS Pennsylvania | |
|---|---|
| Ship name | USS Pennsylvania |
| Namesake | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania |
| Ship class | Pennsylvania-class |
| Hull number | BB-38 |
| Builder | William Cramp & Sons |
| Laid down | 10 December 1913 |
| Launched | 16 March 1915 |
| Commissioned | 12 June 1916 |
| Decommissioned | 10 February 1947 |
| Fate | Target ship; scrapped 1959 |
| Displacement | 32,600 long tons (standard) |
| Length | 608 ft (185 m) |
| Beam | 97 ft (30 m) |
| Draft | 29 ft (8.8 m) |
| Speed | 21 knots |
| Complement | ~1,100 officers and enlisted |
| Armament | 12 × 14 in (356 mm) guns (4 × 3), 14 × 5 in (127 mm) guns (original), multiple AA mounts (WWII) |
| Armor | Belt 13 in (330 mm), turret faces 18 in (457 mm) |
USS Pennsylvania was a dreadnought-era battleship commissioned in 1916, serving the United States Navy through World War I and World War II. As the lead ship of her class, she combined heavy armor and armament with improvements in propulsion and compartmentalization, contributing to fleet operations in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Mediterranean theaters. Her career encompassed convoy escort, fleet flag duties, major amphibious support, and survival of the Attack on Pearl Harbor before postwar decommissioning and scrapping.
Pennsylvania-class construction drew on lessons from the South Dakota and Nevada-class battleship programs, emphasizing improved underwater protection, heavier main battery firepower, and enhanced armor layout. Designed under the supervision of the Bureau of Construction and Repair and the Bureau of Engineering, she featured twelve 14-inch/45 caliber guns in four triple turrets arranged on the centerline, an armored citadel with a 13-inch belt, and mixed coal-oil boilers driving steam turbines built by William Cramp & Sons and Fore River Shipyard subcontractors. Keel laying occurred amid pre-World War I naval expansion debates in the United States Congress, and her launch was attended by state dignitaries from Pennsylvania and naval officers from the Naval War College.
Upon commissioning, she operated with the Atlantic Fleet, undertaking training cruises, gunnery trials, and neutrality patrols during World War I while based out of Norfolk, Virginia and operating in concert with Battle Fleet elements. Postwar activities included showing the flag in the Caribbean and Mediterranean during interventions and relief efforts involving American Expeditionary Forces and postwar diplomatic missions to United Kingdom, France, and Italy. During the interwar period she participated in annual fleet problems organized by the Fleet Training Command and served as flagship for commanders such as admirals assigned to the Battle Fleet and later the Battle Force.
On 7 December 1941, she was present at Pearl Harbor undergoing overhaul; surviving the Attack on Pearl Harbor with damage to superstructure and propulsion, she underwent expedited repairs and was transferred to the Pacific Fleet for wartime operations. Throughout World War II, she provided shore bombardment for amphibious assaults in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, Marianas campaign, and the Philippine campaign (1944–45), escorted carrier task forces during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and supported Operation Forager and Operation Cartwheel objectives. She continued to bombard Japanese positions during late-war operations and was present in forward anchorages at Ulithi Atoll and Leyte Gulf during major fleet concentrations.
She played a direct role in pre-war neutrality patrols and convoy escort in the Atlantic during World War I though seeing no major surface action. At Pearl Harbor, damage control efforts aboard involved coordination with surviving capital ships and salvage units from Repair Ship assets and USS Vestal. Post-repair, her wartime bombardments provided naval gunfire support during the Battle of Saipan and bombardment missions ahead of Leyte and Iwo Jima operations, coordinating fire with Marine Corps amphibious landings and Navy Corpsman forward observers. During carrier task group operations she screened and relieved Essex-class aircraft carriers and participated indirectly in the strategic outcomes of the Philippine Sea carrier battles and the attrition of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s remaining surface units.
Modernization cycles between the wars and wartime refits included conversion of boilers from coal to oil firing in early refits influenced by Fuel Administration policies, installation of enhanced anti-aircraft batteries including 5-inch/38 caliber dual-purpose mounts, and addition of radar systems such as the SG radar and SC radar series. Torpedo protection and internal subdivision improvements reflected lessons from the Battle of Jutland analyses and interwar naval engineering studies at the Naval Engineering School. Superstructure revisions reduced topweight and improved fire-control integration with Mark 34 Gun Fire Control System variants and director ranges, while wartime camouflage and smoke-generation equipment were added to mitigate aerial threat exposure.
As a representative of early 20th-century American capital ship design, she influenced subsequent North Carolina-class battleship and Iowa-class battleship design philosophies regarding armor distribution, main battery caliber, and propulsion choices. Her survival of the Attack on Pearl Harbor and active wartime service earned crew members campaign ribbons linked to the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal, and she held symbolic value in postwar naval histories documented by the Naval History and Heritage Command and memorialized in exhibits at museums in Pennsylvania and Hawaii. Decommissioned in 1947 and used as a target before scrapping, her artifacts, builder’s models, and after-action reports remain in archival collections at institutions including the National Archives and Records Administration and state historical societies.
Category:Battleships of the United States Navy Category:Ships built by William Cramp & Sons