Global InformationList of battleships of the United States Navy information
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The United States Navy began the construction of battleships with USS Texas in 1892, although its first ship to be designated as such was USS Indiana. Texas and USS Maine,[a] commissioned three years later in 1895, were part of the New Navy program of the late 19th century, a proposal by then Secretary of the Navy William H. Hunt to match Europe's navies that ignited a years-long debate that was suddenly settled in Hunt's favor when the Brazilian Empire commissioned the battleship Riachuelo.[1][2][3][4] In 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan's book The Influence of Sea Power upon History was published and significantly influenced future naval policy—as an indirect result of its influence on Secretary Benjamin F. Tracy, the Navy Act of June 30, 1890[5] authorized the construction of "three sea-going, coast-line battle ships" which became the Indiana class. The Navy Act of July 19, 1892 authorized construction of a fourth "sea-going, coast-line battle ship", which became USS Iowa.[6] Despite much later claims that these were to be purely defensive and were authorized as "coastal defense ships", they were almost immediately used for offensive operations in the Spanish–American War.[7][8] By the start of the 20th century, the United States Navy had in service or under construction the three Illinois-class and two Kearsarge-class battleships, making the United States the world's fifth strongest power at sea from a nation that had been 12th in 1870.[9]
Except for Kearsarge, named by an act of Congress, all U.S. Navy battleships have been named for states, and each of the 48 contiguous states has had at least one battleship named for it except Montana; two battleships were authorized to be named Montana but both were cancelled before construction started. Alaska and Hawaii did not become states until 1959, after the end of battleship building, but the battlecruiser, or "Large Cruiser," USS Alaska was built during World War II and her sister, USS Hawaii, was begun but never completed. The pre-dreadnoughts USS Zrinyi (formerly the Austrian SMS Zrínyi), USS Radetzky (formerly the Austrian SMS Radetzky), and the dreadnought USS Ostfriesland (formerly the German SMS Ostfriesland), taken as prizes of war after World War I, were commissioned in the US Navy, but were not assigned hull classification symbols.
No American battleship has ever been lost at sea, though four were sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Of these, only USS Arizona (BB-39) and USS Oklahoma (BB-37) were permanently destroyed as a result of enemy action. Several other battleships have been sunk as targets, and USS Utah, demilitarized and converted into a target and training ship, was permanently destroyed at Pearl Harbor. The hulk of Oklahoma was salvaged and was lost at sea while being towed to the mainland for scrapping. Two American-built pre-dreadnought battleships, USS Mississippi (BB-23) and her sister USS Idaho (BB-24), were sunk in 1941 by German bombers during their World War II invasion of Greece. The ships had been sold to Greece in 1914, becoming Kilkis and Lemnos respectively.
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- ^ Reilly & Scheina (1980), p. 21, 35.
- ^ Miller (1997), p. 149.
- ^ Sweetman (2002), p. 87.
- ^ Friedman (1985), pp. 17, 20.
- ^ "Navy Act of June 30, 1890" (PDF). Library of Congress. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-07-02. Retrieved 2018-05-29.
- ^ Miller (1997), pp. 144, 153, 157.
- ^ Silverstone (1970), p. 29.
- ^ Reilly & Scheina (1980), p. 210; (Cites this article from a 1986 edition of Scientific American.
- ^ Miller (1997), pp. 144, 155.