On this date in 1910, newspapers reported that the battleship USS North Dakota had suffered an oil tank explosion and fire at sea. Six crewmen received the Congressional Medal of Honor for “extraordinary heroism in the line of their profession.”
Commissioned into the Navy in 1910, the North Dakota had a mostly peaceful career. Although present during the U.S. occupation of Veracruz, Mexico in 1914, her primary mission during World War I was training new sailors for the rapidly expanding Navy.
The ship stayed on active duty until the early 1920s, then was converted into a radio-controlled target ship until 1930, when it was replaced by the USS Utah.
At the time of her construction, the North Dakota was the largest and most powerful battleship in the world. The Navy had wanted two new ships that would improve on the British HMS Dreadnought. The North Dakota featured an additional turret and all ten of its main guns could fire on the broadside, unlike the Dreadnought.
But the ship was controversial. While it was being built in 1907–08, critics, including some in the Navy, claimed its design was flawed, its guns were weak, and its turbine engines were inferior. The debate played out in journals like The New York Times and Scientific American.
The Grand Forks Herald acknowledged the controversy but assured readers that the critics were off base. The Fargo Forum ran a front-page headline calling the ship “Uncle Sam’s Biggest Peacemaker.”
In 1921, the USS North Dakota took part in joint Army-Navy bombing tests that sank two ex-German battleships in an air-power demonstration. She later resumed peacetime training, including summer midshipmen cruises to Europe.
Unlike her sister ship, the USS Delaware, North Dakota did not see combat during World War I.
Both ships were decommissioned on November 22, 1923, in Norfolk, in compliance with the Washington Naval Conference Treaty, which limited naval armaments among the U.S., Great Britain, and Japan.
The North Dakota was disarmed in 1924 and reclassified as "unclassified." Once newer battleships, the Colorado and West Virginia entered service, North Dakota was ordered scrapped.
She was sold for dismantling in 1931, and towed from Norfolk to a ship-breaking yard in Baltimore.
Dakota Datebook by Lise Erdrich
Sources:
- HS USS ND, North Dakota Studies. https://www.ndstudies.gov/hs-uss-nd
- WIKIPEDIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_West_Virginia_(BB-48)
