When commissioned, the battleship U.S.S. Tennessee had a novel experiment in ship manning – most of her enlisted crewmen were recruited from the state of Tennessee. Following her shakedown, Tennessee spent the next twenty years mostly in the Pacific Fleet, returning to the Atlantic for overhauls, including a major one in 1932 - 1934. As the political situation with Japan deteriorated during the 1930s, Tennessee was eventually home-ported at Pearl Harbor in 1940 with the rest of the navy’s battle line.
On December 7, 1941, Tennessee was moored inboard of West Virginia and forward of Arizona. During the attack, Tennessee was hit by two bombs, one on the left gun of turret #2 and one on the roof of turret #3 aft. Five men aboard Tennessee were killed and 37 wounded, but Tennessee’s damage was minimal. Tennessee had to run her engines, using her propellers to try and keep burning oil from the Arizona away from the ship. The sinking of the West Virginia next outboard wedged Tennessee against her mooring blocks and she eventually had to be dynamited loose.
Tennessee was quickly repaired at Bremerton, Washington and returned to sea duty by February 1942. The navy kept the old battleships in subsidiary duties while the carrier fleets battled it out in the early naval engagements and by September 1942 Tennessee was back at Bremerton for the most complete reconstruction of an old battleship possible. Tennessee, like California and West Virginia, was rebuilt from the main deck up, receiving large anti-torpedo bulges whose upper platform formed part of the support for eight twin 5"/38 dual-purpose guns, a completely new superstructure with modern fire control and navigation radars, ten quadruple 40mm anti-aircraft mounts and 60 20mm guns in addition to a refurbished main battery and engines. Tennessee was virtually a new ship, although still slow by modern battleship standards, and she would prove to be an extremely formidable bombardment and anti-aircraft ship for the amphibious forces charged with capturing Japanese-held territory in the Pacific.
A part of the navy’s amphibious groups in 1943 - 44, Tennessee conducted bombardments of the Aleutians, Tarawa, Roi, Namur, Eniwetok, Kavieng, Saipan and Guam. Eight men were killed on Tennessee at Saipan when she was hit by 6" shore batteries. These operations were followed by the invasion of the Philippines. On October 25, 1944, Tennessee, along with Pearl Harbor veterans Pennsylvania, California, 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. Obsolete and unneeded after the end of the war, Tennessee was placed in reserve and finally scrapped in 1959. (DBoyer 2007)
