|
Following commissioning in 1916, the U.S.S. Pennsylvania was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet and became flagship in October of that same year. She was engaged in the usual fleet maneuvers, battle problems and exercises over the next year, basing at Yorktown, Virginia when the United States entered World War I in April of 1917. Pennsylvania spent the war years in training and exercises, not being sent to serve with the British Grand Fleet because she was oil-fueled and the navy did not have the tankers to support a fleet overseas until almost the end of the war. Post-war Pennsylvania served as one of the battleships escorting transport George Washington to France with President Woodrow Wilson on board, for the Paris Peace Conference.
From the end of the war until 1941, Pennsylvania served in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, engaging in all the practices, maneuvers, battle problems and flag-showing cruises that were the lot of the battleships with no war to fight. This changed when Pennsylvania was in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Sitting in drydock No. 1 at the time of the infamous attack, Pennsylvania was hit by one bomb on the starboard boat deck and was repeatedly strafed by attacking aircraft. Destroyers Cassin and Downes, forward of Pennsylvania in drydock were both burned out and flooded. Pennsylvania had 29 men killed or missing and 38 wounded. Lightly damaged, Pennsylvania returned to sea after repairs at San Francisco. She operated in rear areas until October 1942, when she received and extensive overhaul, included installing eight twin 5"/38 cal. gun mounts, additional 40mm and 20mm anti-aircraft guns and improved radars.
Returning to the war in May 1943, Pennsylvania’s initial combat was in the Aleutian campaign. An accidental explosion in her gasoline storage required repairs at Puget Sound, but Pennsylvania returned to combat by November of 1943 during operations to capture Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. This was soon followed by Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Saipan, Guam and Pelileu during 1944, her close-range gunnery greatly easing the task of the invading troops. Pennsylvania then supported the invasion of the Philippines. On October 25, 1944, Pennsylvania, along with Pearl Harbor veterans California, Tennessee, West Virginia and Maryland, accompanied by Mississippi, engaged a Japanese battle force in Surigao Strait, destroying the battleships Yamashiro and Fuso, the last battleship vs. battleship gunnery action in history. It was a fitting tribute that five Pearl Harbor veterans were there. Badly damaged by an aerial torpedo during the Okinawa operations in 1945, Pennsylvania was effectively out of the war. Only partially repaired by the end of the war, she was selected as one of the ships to be used in the target array for the Operation Crossroads atomic tests of 1946. Pennsylvania survived both tests, but in 1948 she was used as a target and sunk off Kwajalein Island, one of the islands she had helped capture. (DBoyer 2007)
|
