USS Tennessee (BB-43) - Inter-War Period

Inter-War Period

After fitting out, the Tennessee conducted trials in Long Island Sound from 15 to 23 October 1920. While Tennessee was at New York City, one of her 300 kilowatt electric generators exploded on 30 October, completely destroying the turbine end of the machine, and also injuring two men. Undaunted, the battleship's crew, navy yard craftsmen, and manufacturers' representatives labored to eliminate the "teething troubles" in the engineering systems of the Tennessee, enabling her to depart from New York on 26 February 1921 for standardization trials at Guantanamo Bay. She next steamed north for the Virginia Capes and arrived at Hampton Roads on 19 March. Tennessee carried out gunnery calibration firing at Dahlgren, Virginia and was drydocked at Boston before full-power trials off Rockland, Maine. Two of her original 14 5-inch / 51-calibre guns were removed. After touching base at New York Harbor, she steamed south, transited the Panama Canal, and on 17 June, she arrived at San Pedro, California, her home port for the next 19 years.

There, she joined the Battleship Force, Pacific Fleet and served there until World War II.

Peacetime service with the battleship divisions involved an annual cycle of training, maintenance, and readiness exercises. Her yearly schedule included competitions in gunnery and engineering performance and an annual fleet problem, a large-scale war game in which most or all of the United States Fleet was organized into opposing forces and presented with a variety of strategic and tactical situations to resolve. Beginning with Fleet Problem I in 1923 and continuing through Fleet Problem XXI in April 1940, Tennessee had a prominent share in these battle exercises. However, her individual proficiency was not neglected. During the competitive years 1922 and 1923, she made the highest aggregate score in the list of record practices fired by her guns of various caliber and won the "E" for excellence in gunnery. In 1923 and 1924, she again won the gunnery "E" as well as the prized Battle Efficiency Pennant for the highest combined total score in gunnery and engineering competitions. In 1925, she took part in joint U.S. Army-Navy maneuvers to test the defenses of Hawaii before visiting Australia and New Zealand. Subsequent fleet problems and tactical exercises took the Tennessee from Hawaii to the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean and from Alaskan waters to Panama. Her original 3 in (76 mm) antiaircraft (AA) battery was replaced by eight 5-inch / 25-calibre guns during 1929–1930.

Fleet Problem XXI was conducted in Hawaiian waters during the spring of 1940. At the end of this problem, the battleship force did not return to San Pedro, but rather at President Franklin Roosevelt's direction, its base of operations was shifted to Pearl Harbor in the hope that this move might deter the Japanese Empire's expansion in the Orient. Following an overhaul at the Puget Sound Navy Yard after the conclusion of Fleet Problem XXI, the Tennessee steamed into her new base on 12 August 1940. Due to the increasing hostility in world affairs, Fleet Problem XXII, scheduled for the spring of 1941, was canceled. Thus, the Tennessee's activities during these final months of peace were confined to smaller scale operations.