1,177 of her crewman were killed on that day. This ship was hit by eight bombs and one torpedo, causing it to explode and sink. The same was not the case for her sister ship, the U.S.S. (“General Quarters” is the term used aboard a ship to tell the crew to man their battle stations.) That ship suffered minimal damage during the attack due to being hit by only one bomb. She was one of the first ships to open fire on the Japanese and it is said the 50 caliber crew began firing even before the General Quarters Alarm was sounded. On the morning of December 7, she was sitting in dry-dock in the navy yard. Pennsylvania was stationed at Pearl Harbor in 1941 during the infamous attack by the Japanese. Pennsylvania suffered little damage during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor her sister ship, the U.S.S. Two tripod masts replaced the cage masts that were previously on the ship and her combat systems were improved. Pennsylvania was stationed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard while she underwent modernization. In 1921, she became the flagship of the newly created battle fleet and led this fleet for the next eight years on patrols and maneuvers through the Atlantic, Caribbean and the Pacific. Because there were not enough oil tankers to send to the British Isles, the Allied Forces used only coal-burning ships to fight the German Navy, thus excluding the U.S.S. Pennsylvania was never used on the front lines because she was seen as “too modern.” She was one of two ships in the fleet that was oil-burning, the other being the U.S.S. Arizona, made in the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn, NY.Īlthough she was ready for battle during WWI, the U.S.S. The other ship in the class was the famous U.S.S. This 31,400-ton battleship was built by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Docking Company in Virginia, and was the lead ship in a class of two of this size. Pennsylvania (BB 38) was authorized by Congress on Augand commissioned for service just shy of four years later on June 12, 1916. The event: the launching of the world’s largest battleship, the U.S.S. Trains from all over Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia arrived and flooded the town with spectators. Twenty thousand people gathered and cheered at the docks of the Newport News Shipbuilding Company on the morning of March 16, 1915. Pennsylvania sails out of Hampton Road, Virginia on December 10, 1916.
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