Delaware Class Battleship - Service History - USS North Dakota

USS North Dakota

Upon commissioning, the ship was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, alongside her sister Delaware. Her first overseas cruise came in November 1910, when she steamed across the Atlantic to visit France and Britain. North Dakota also took part in the invasion of Vera Cruz in 1914. Unlike her sister, North Dakota remained off the American coast for the duration of the United States' involvement in World War I. Hugh Rodman, the commander of the American expeditionary force, specifically requested that North Dakota be kept stateside; he felt her turbine engines were too unreliable for the ship to be deployed to a war zone.

From 1917, she was employed as a training ship for gunners and engineers. Post-war, North Dakota made a second trip to Europe, primarily to ports in the Mediterranean Sea. During the visit, the ship was tasked with the retrieval of the remains of the ambassador to Italy, who had recently died. The ship participated in the aerial bombing demonstrations off the Virginia Capes in 1921. In 1923, a third trip to Europe, this time with midshipmen from the Naval Academy aboard. The ship stopped in Spain, Scotland, and Scandinavia.

Like her sister, she was relegated to the surplus naval forces that had to be dismantled under the Washington Naval Treaty. In November 1923, North Dakota was decommissioned; she had her armaments removed in 1924, after which she was converted into a target ship. She was redesignated as "unclassified", and served as a target until 1931, when she was scrapped.