Florida Class Battleship

Florida Class Battleship

The Florida-class battleships of the United States Navy comprised two ships: Florida and Utah. Launched in 1910 and 1909 respectively and commissioned in 1911, they were slightly larger than the preceding Delaware-class design but were otherwise very similar. This was the first US battleship class in which all ships received steam turbine engines. In the previous Delaware class, one ship received steam turbine propulsion as an experiment while the other retained triple-expansion engines.

Both ships were involved in the 1914 Second battle of Vera Cruz, deploying their Marine contingents as part of the operation. Following the entrance of the United States into World War I in 1917, both ships were deployed to Europe. Florida was assigned to the British Grand Fleet and based in Scapa Flow; in December 1918 she escorted President Woodrow Wilson to France for the peace negotiations. Utah was assigned to convoy escort duty; she was based in Ireland and was tasked with protecting convoys as they approached the European continent.

Retained under the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, both ships were modernized significantly, with torpedo bulges and oil-fired boilers installed and other improvements made, but were demilitarized under terms of the 1930 London Naval Treaty. Florida was scrapped, Utah converted into first a radio-controlled target ship, then an anti-aircraft gunnery trainer. She served in the latter role until sunk by the Japanese during the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Her hull, never raised, remains on the bottom of the harbor as a war memorial.