U.S. Battleships 1939–45

Introduction

On March 31, 1992, when the venerable U.S.S. Missouri was decommissioned for the second and final time, the age of the battleship irrevocably came to an end. At that time the Mighty Mo was the last of its kind, representing a breed of warship that had dominated the world’s oceans, particularly in the early 20th century.

During World War II, American battleships played a crucial role in various naval operations. However, as the conflict progressed, their importance began to diminish as aircraft carriers took over as the primary offensive weapon. The rise of the latter was due to their ability to project airpower over long distances and attack enemy ships from a safe distance. In contrast, battleships were limited to their guns’ range and vulnerable to enemy air attacks. Nevertheless, they continued to play an essential role in shore bombardment and escort duty throughout the war.

In addition, their development and deployment were significant milestones in the evolution of naval warfare. Advances in armor protection, gunnery, and fire-control systems improved battleship performance and paved the way for future naval innovations. The lessons learned from battleship engagements during the war continue to influence modern naval warfare; their legacy and impact on naval warfare cannot be understated.

While the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, located in Pearl Harbor, is a testament to the sacrifice and service of the men who fought and died on American battleships, Missouri has become an enduring symbol of the Allied victory in World War II, as it was on its deck that the Japanese officially surrendered on September 2, 1945.

The Iowa-class, in particular, became a symbol of American naval power, as it also played an important role in projecting American strength around the world during the Cold War.

Today, all the world’s battleships are gone except eight of the United States Navy’s (and the Japanese Mikasa) having survived as floating museums, standing the test of time. As a sign of national power and prestige, they have long served their nation as an important factor in both diplomacy and military strategy, much like today’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. This is their story.

American battleships steaming in column formation, circa 1914. The leading ship is either U.S.S. Wyoming (BB-32) or U.S.S. Arkansas (BB-33). Note the dense smoke produced by these coal-burning ships compared to oil-burning vessels.

1

Pre-dreadnought Era

After the British victory over the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in 1805, the era of proud wooden sailing ships slowly came to an end. The introduction of steam power in the late 1840s enabled ships to be less dependent on the wind in battle and during maneuvering. This led to the construction of screw-driven ships and the fitting out of several existing ones with this new propulsion system.

However, the career of these unarmored wooden vessels with sails and propellers was short-lived due to the introduction of explosive and incendiary shells which posed a major threat. In addition, the French Gloire, launched in 1859, the world’s first ocean-going ironclad warship, proved to be superior to all existing ships. However, as it was built with a wooden hull, it was rendered obsolete when the British Royal Navy responded with the Warrior-class in 1860, the world’s first generation of completely iron-hulled, ironclad warships. Now the naval race was on for the best-protected and most heavily armed warship—the predecessor of the 20th-century battleship.

At the same time, the American Civil War raged on the other side of the Atlantic. On March 9, 1862, Hampton Roads off the coast of Virginia became the backdrop for the first clash between ironclad warships— the Union’s U.S.S. Monitor and the Confederacy’s C.S.S. Virginia. While the former carried a revolving gun turret, the latter was a casemate ironclad using the raised and cut-down original lower hull and engines of the scuttled steam frigate U.S.S. Merrimack. After fighting for several hours, the battle of Hampton Roads ended as a draw as neither could overcome the other’s armor.

The French Gloire soon rendered traditional unarmored wooden ships of the line obsolete, prompting all major navies to build ironclads of their own.

Launched in 1859, the French Gloire was the world’s first oceangoing ironclad. (La Royale/Jean Randier)

The superior armored British HMS Warrior followed the French Gloire by just 14 months, and both nations began building new ironclads and converting existing screw ships of the line to armored warships. Warrior has survived to this day and can be visited alongside HMS Victory.

The engagement not only confirmed the need for ironclad ships but also proved the advantages of rotating gun turrets enabling the ship to fire in all directions without having to turn the ship around immediately after passing the enemy. Until the end of the 19th century, the rotating gun turret became the standard on warships. With steam propulsion becoming more efficient and reliable, masts gradually disappeared. The mid-1870s saw the introduction of steel as a solid and durable construction material alongside iron and wood. The French Redoutable, launched in 1876, was a central battery and barbette warship that became the world’s first battleship using steel as the principal building material.

Eventually, the ironclad warship evolved into the pre-dreadnought battleship. The first ironclads, the French Gloire and the British Warrior, looked much like conventional sailing warships featuring broadside batteries and three masts. Just a few years later, in 1871, the Royal Navy launched Devastation, a turreted ironclad showing a stronger resemblance to a pre-dreadnought battleship than previous and contemporary turretless ironclads. Devastation, built without masts and armed with four heavy guns in two turrets fore and aft, was the world’s first ocean-worthy breastwork monitor (the term monitor was derived from U.S.S. Monitor). However, designed to attack enemy harbors and coasts and built with a very low freeboard, Devastation could not operate as a fighting platform on the high seas as the decks would be swept by water, interfering with the working of the artillery.

The battle of Hampton Roads between U.S.S. Monitor and the Confederacy’s C.S.S. Virginia in 1862. Prior to this clash, Virginia had sunk several wooden Union ships proving the superiority of ironclad warships over conventional unarmored wooden vessels. (U.S. Library of Congress)

Monitor’s design was distinguished by its revolving turret. It was quickly duplicated and established the American monitor-type of armored warships. This stereo image is an early form of three-dimensional photography. (U.S. Library of Congress)

Great Britain, the dominating sea power, determined to keep its lead in modern warship design, did not rely exclusively on monitors such as Devastation, and designed a type of warship that blurred the distinction between a coast-assault battleship and a high-seas battleship. Commissioned in the late 1880s, the six ships of the Admiral-class reflected the latest developments in ironclad design. Their protection consisted of iron-and-steel compound armor rather than wrought iron; they boasted breech-loading guns of between 12-inch and 16.25-inch (305 mm and 413 mm) caliber in rotating turrets. They were succeeded by the eight larger and faster ships of the Royal Sovereign-class (1889), which were uniformly armed with 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns. Their higher freeboard made them unequivocally capable of the battleship role on the high seas. The nine ships of the Majestic-class (1895) eventually represented a mature pre-dreadnought battleship design, serving as a model for future battleships for years to come. Constructed entirely of steel, they were armed with 12-inch (305 mm) main guns with a range of 10,000 yards (9,100 m).

Diagrams showing right elevation, deck plan and below-decks plan of the British ironclad battleship HMS Inflexible (1876). A heavily armored citadel was located amidships. It would keep the ship afloat containing the main guns, boilers and engines. (Brassey’s Naval. Annual 1888)

The British Majestic-class (1895). Its 12-inch (305 mm) main guns were more powerful and lighter than previous larger gun calibers. (U.S. Library of Congress)

Pre-dreadnoughts battleships were armed with different gun calibers used for various roles in ship-to-ship engagements. Their main armament usually consisted of four heavy guns, mounted in two centerline turrets fore and aft. Although these slow-firing weapons initially suffered from a limited accuracy, they were able to penetrate the thick armor plating that protected enemy ships’ engines, magazines, and main guns. While the commonest caliber for the main artillery in British, French, American, Japanese, and Russian pre-dreadnoughts was 12-inch (305 mm), some designs such as the German Brandenburg-class carried smaller 11-inch guns (279 mm) to attain a higher rate of fire.

The secondary battery mostly consisted of smaller guns, usually 6-inch (152 mm) to be used against smaller vessels such as cruisers, destroyers, and torpedo boats. Another role was to damage the less-protected parts of enemy battleships. Although their shells could not penetrate the main armor belt, they could hit lightly armored areas like the bridge, or start fires on board. Some pre-dreadnoughts were armed with an intermediate battery, typically consisting of 8-inch (203 mm) to 10-inch (254 mm) caliber guns. These lightweight weapons served as a means of adding more firepower to an already well-armed battleship. The armament was completed by a tertiary battery consisting of light, rapid-fire guns ranging from 3-inch (76 mm) caliber down to machine guns. They provided short-range protection against torpedo boats or were used to strafe the decks and superstructure of enemy warships. In addition, numerous ships carried torpedoes located either above or below the waterline.

The American pre-dreadnought U.S.S. Kearsarge (BB-5), launched in 1898, carried a powerful main armament of four 13-inch guns and an intermediate battery of four 8-inch guns. The latter soon became obsolete. (U.S. Library of Congress)

Installation of a 12-inch gun on a Connecticut-class battleship (1904). The subsequent four classes were also armed with this weapon. Its range was up to 20,000 yards (18,288 m) at 15° elevation.

U.S.S. Louisiana (BB-19), launched in 1904.

The secondary battery of the Delaware-class (1908) consisted of 21 5-inch guns on pedestal mounts in casemates along the side of the hull.

Armor and Protection

Pre-dreadnoughts carried a considerable weight of steel armor for protection against enemy gunfire. Instead of giving the ship a uniform armor protection, thus making them too heavy, the armor plating was concentrated over critical areas including the gun turrets. The central hull section housing the engines and boilers was protected by the main armor belt (central citadel). With a thickness of up to 18 inches (457 mm) or more, it ran from just below the waterline to a certain height above it. The main armament and ammunition magazines were protected by thick armor from the main belt. The main armor belt tapered to a lesser thickness along the side of the hull towards the bow and stern; and tapered up from the central citadel towards the ship’s superstructure. The deck was lightly armored with 2 to 4 inches (50.8 to 101.6 mm) of steel. With the improved quality of armor plating, new ships could be built with thinner armor providing the same protection, thus saving weight.

Propulsion

Prior to the construction of the turbine-driven British HMS Dreadnought virtually every battleship was powered by reciprocating steam engines giving them a top speed of up to 18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h). While the pre-dreadnoughts of the 1880s used simple compound engines, the following years saw the introduction of more efficient triple or even quadruple expansion steam engines. The adoption of increasingly higher-pressure steam from the boilers resulted in an improvement in engine performance. The introduction of water-tube boilers allowed higher pressure steam to be produced with less fuel consumption and less risk of explosion. (Although coal was almost exclusively used as fuel, early experiments with oil took place in the late 1890s.)

U.S.S. Kearsarge’s midship section plan depicting the armor arrangement, along with one 5-inch broadside gun, an 18-inch above-water torpedo tube, and the steering wheels in the armored conning tower and the pilothouse.

The late 19th century saw the introduction of triple or even quadruple expansion steam engines.

The Great White Fleet World Cruise (1907-9) was a demonstration of American naval power. The tour served additional purposes from goodwill visits to the testing of fleet preparedness.

The United States and Japan

The U.S. Navy started its pre-dreadnought construction in 1891 with short-range coastal-defense battleships, which had poor seagoing capabilities. These early designs, however, ensured American naval dominance against the antiquated Spanish Navy, which possessed no comparable vessels in the Spanish-American War (1898), most notably at the sea battle of Santiago de Cuba. The U.S. Navy’s final 13 pre-dreadnoughts, consisting of the Virginia-, Connecticut- and Mississippi-classes, could operate on the highs seas and had a longer range than their coastal-defense predecessors. From December 1907 to February 1909, the Great White Fleet, consisting of 16 pre-dreadnought battleships, along with various escorts, circumnavigated the world by order of President Theodore Roosevelt. The mission was to make courtesy visits to numerous countries, while displaying America’s new naval power to the world.

Great White Fleet painting by John Charles Roach (1984), depicting U.S. Atlantic Fleet battleships during their 1907–9 world cruise.

A mascot kangaroo on board U.S.S. Connecticut (BB-18) during the world cruise. The animal was presented to the ship by the citizens of Sydney, Australia, when the U.S. Atlantic Fleet visited the city in 1908.

On the other side of the vast Pacific Ocean, Japan had been involved in various naval conflicts. With six pre-dreadnought battleships as the core of its fleet, its navy twice engaged the numerically superior but technically inferior Russian fleets at the battle of the Yellow Sea (1904), and the battle of Tsushima (1905). After capturing several Russian battleships of various ages, Japan ordered additional classes of pre-dreadnoughts. Commander-in-Chief of the fleet during the Russo-Japanese War was Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, who successfully confined the Russian Pacific Fleet to Port Arthur before winning a decisive victory over the Russian fleet at Tsushima. His flagship Mikasa, built in Great Britain, has miraculously survived to this day as a museum ship in Yokosuka and is the last pre-dreadnought battleship anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, Admiral Jackie Fisher, First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, had begun to modernize the British fleet by conceiving an innovative new battleship type, which upon its launch would render all existing pre-dreadnoughts obsolete. Its name was HMS Dreadnought.

President Theodore Roosevelt (standing on gun turret at right) addresses the crew on the after deck of U.S.S. Connecticut (BB-18), in Hampton Roads, Virginia, upon its return from the world cruise, 22 February, 1909.

Mikasa, flagship of Admiral Togo Heihachiro during the battle at Tsushima (1905), is the only surviving pre-dreadnought battleship anywhere in the world.

Layout of Mikasa’s armament and armor. (Jane’s Fighting Ships 1906–7)

2

Dreadnought—The All-big-gun Battleship

At the dawn of the 20th century, various sea powers had concluded that battleships would fight each other at longer distances in the future, with accuracy declining with increasing range. In addition, the advantage of a high rate of fire decreased as the gunnery’s accuracy depended on spotting the shell splashes of the previous salvo to adjust the guns for a more precise follow-up salvo, thus slowing the rate of fire.

Experts took notice when pre-dreadnoughts exchanged volleys at ranges up to 12,000 yards (11 km) during the Russo-Japanese 1904–5 conflict, thus operating beyond the range of secondary batteries. As an evolutionary step, naval designers reduced the number of these weapons and instead added more heavy guns, typically 9.2 inch (234 mm) or 10 inch (254 mm), complementing the main artillery of 12-inch (305 mm) guns, thus leading to all-big-gun mixed-caliber battleships, later labelled semi-dreadnoughts. These included the British Lord Nelson-class and the Austro-Hungarian Radetzky-class.

The Austro-Hungarian Radetzky-class carried a mixed main armament of 12-inch and 9.4-inch guns. (Fortepan/ID 19490/Saly Noémi)

As the next evolutionary step, navies began experimenting with the idea of a capital warship design carrying a uniform armament— the all-big-gun battleship. Soon several experts, such as the Italian Navy’s chief naval architect, Admiral Vittorio Cuniberti, began defining such warships as having a single caliber of 12 12-inch guns, carrying a 12-inch armor belt, displacing 17,000 long tons (17,270 t), and being capable of a top speed of 24 knots (27 mph; 44 km/h). Now, the first true battleship was taking shape—at least in published articles written by those who envisioned its advantages.

By the turn of the 20th century, the effectiveness of heavy artillery saw significant improvements—in 1895, a 12-inch gun might have fired one round every four minutes; by 1902, up to two rounds per minute was common.

What is the advantage of an all-big-gun battleship? Naval designers stressed that the use of a uniform caliber would provide homogeneity in terms of ammunition supply and the transfer of crews from the disengaged guns to replace gunners wounded or killed in action. It also helped streamline the complex procedure of fire control as it meant only one set of calculation systems for the gun range adjustments. One single caliber also would reduce the risk of confusion between shell splashes of bigger and lighter guns, which in the past had made accurate ranging more difficult. Ultimately, the likelihood of future engagements at longer ranges proved to be pivotal in the decision-making process that the heaviest possible guns, 12-inch instead of 10-inch, should become standard. Moreover, the latest improvements in the design of 12-inch mountings resulted in a considerably higher rate of fire, thus eliminating the previous advantage of smaller calibers.

Diagram of the Japanese battleship Aki (sister ship of Satsuma) depicting the layout of the armament. (Brassey’s)

The Japanese Satsuma- class Aki launched in 1906–7, could have been the world’s first all-big-gun battleship.

In 1905–6, Japan, a rising naval power, was the first to lay down two all-big-gun ships, Satsuma and Aki, to be armed with 12 12-inch (305 mm) guns in four twin-and four single-gun turrets. However, the financial burden of the recent Russo-Japanese War and the shortage of 12-inch guns, manufactured in Great Britain, forced the Japanese designers to change the armament’s layout. Eventually, both ships were built with a mixed caliber consisting of four 12-inch guns in two twin turrets and 12 10-inch (254 mm) guns in six twin turrets. Although planned as all-big-gun battleships, both were completed in 1910–11 as semi-dreadnoughts due to their mixed armament. Whereas Satsuma retained traditional triple-expansion steam engines, Aki (like Dreadnought) was built with the then-new steam turbines.

At the same time, British Admiral Jackie Fisher, a long-time advocate of technical innovations, shared— along with his naval designers—the Japanese vision of an all-big-gun battleship. In early 1905, Fisher’s Committee on Designs evaluated the available reports of the battle at Tsushima, and examined various possible armament, armor, and propulsion configurations for an improved version of Japan’s Satsuma. The dreadnought breakthrough eventually occurred in October 1905 when the keel for Dreadnought was laid in Portsmouth. With a standard displacement of 18,000 long tons (18,300 t), its main armament consisted of 10 12-inch guns in five twin turrets and its secondary battery of 27 single 12-pounder (76 mm) guns. Dreadnought was powered by two paired sets of Parsons direct-drive turbines driving two shafts. The greater power and lighter weight of turbines gave Dreadnought a speed of 21 knots (24 mph; 39 km/h), making it 2 or 3 knots faster than existing battleships. Thanks to the efficiency of Britain’s shipbuilding industry, Dreadnought was commissioned in December 1906—just 14 months after its keel was laid. All subsequent battleships following or resembling its concept would be labelled dreadnoughts. Moreover, Dreadnought’s introduction almost without exception halted further construction of intermediate-battery ships and rendered the existing ones obsolete.

Diagram of Dreadnought, the world’s first all-big-gun ship, depicting the layout of the armament. (Encyclopedia Britannica)

The name Dreadnought or dread nought means fear nothing. HMS Dreadnought, launched and commissioned in 1906, gave its name to the first generation of all-big-gun ships.

Dreadnought’s 12-inch guns had a range of up to 25,000 yards (22,860 m). The weight of a shell was 850 lb (385.6 kg). Dreadnought’s guns never engaged an enemy