USS Virginia (BB-13) - World War I

World War I

On the day America entered World War I, the United States government took steps to take over all interned German merchant vessels then in American ports. As part of that move, Virginia sent boarding parties to seize Amerika, Cincinnati, Wittekind, Köln, and Ockenfels on 6 April 1917.

Completing her overhaul at Boston on 27 August, Virginia sailed for Port Jefferson, New York three days later to join the 3rd Division, Battleship Force, Atlantic Fleet. Over the ensuing year, the battleship served as a gunnery training ship out of Port Jefferson and Norfolk; service interrupted briefly in early December 1917, when she became temporary flagship for Rear Admiral John A. Hoogewerff, Commander, Battleship Division 1 (BatDiv 1). She subsequently became flagship for the 3rd Division commander, Rear Admiral Thomas Snowden.

Overhauled at the Boston Navy Yard in the autumn of 1918, Virginia spent the remainder of hostilities engaged in convoy escort duties, taking convoys well over half-way across the Atlantic. She departed New York on 14 October 1918 on her first such mission, covering a convoy that had some 12,176 men embarked. After escorting those ships to longitude 22° west, she put about and headed for home.

That proved to be her only such wartime mission, however, because the armistice was signed on 11 November, the day before Virginia set out with a France-bound convoy, her second escort run into the mid-Atlantic. After leaving that convoy at longitude 34° west, Virginia put about and headed for Hampton Roads.