USS Arizona (BB-39) - Construction and Trials

Construction and Trials

The keel of battleship number 39 was laid on the morning of 16 March 1914 with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt in attendance. The builders intended to set a world-record ten months between the ship's keel-laying and launch, for what The New York Times declared would be "... the world's biggest and most powerful, both offensively and defensively, superdreadnought ever constructed", but the ship was only a little over half complete a year later. She was launched on 19 June 1915, making it about fifteen months from keel-laying to launch. In the meantime, the ship was named after the newest state in the union by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels.

The New York Times estimated that 75,000 people attended the launch, including John Purroy Mitchel, the Mayor of New York City, George W. P. Hunt, the governor of Arizona, and many high-ranking military officials. Several warships were also nearby, including many of the new dreadnoughts which had already entered service (Florida, Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas, New York, and Texas). Esther Ross, the daughter of an Arizona pioneer family, was given the honors of ship sponsor and christening. To acknowledge a ban on alcohol recently passed by the state legislature, the state's governor decided that two bottles would be used: one full of sparkling wine from Ohio, and another filled with water from the Roosevelt Dam. After the launch, Arizona was towed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for fitting-out.

Arizona was commissioned into the Navy on 17 October 1916 with John D. McDonald as captain. She departed New York on 10 November 1916 after the crew had cleaned the ship and the propulsion system had been tested at the dock. After declinating the ship's magnetic compasses, the ship sailed south for her shakedown cruise. Outside Guantanamo Bay, a stripped turbine on 7 December forced the Navy to order Arizona back to New York for repairs, although she was able to enter Chesapeake Bay to test her main and secondary gun batteries on 19–20 December. The turbine could not be repaired inside the ship, so the yard workers had to cut holes in the upper decks to lift the damaged casing out. It was reinstalled after almost four months of repairs at the naval yard.