USS Wyoming (BB-32) - Pre-World War I

Pre-World War I

Wyoming departed from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 6 October and completed the fitting-out process at the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York, before she joined the fleet in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Reaching the Tidewater area on 30 December 1912, she became the flagship of Rear Admiral Charles J. Badger, Commander, Atlantic Fleet, soon thereafter. Sailing on 6 January 1913, the new battleship visited the soon-to-be-completed Panama Canal and then conducted winter fleet maneuvers off Cuba before she returned to Chesapeake Bay on 4 March.

After gunnery practice off the Virginia Capes, on the southern drill grounds, Wyoming underwent repairs and alterations at the New York Navy Yard from 18 April to 7 May. She then participated in war games off Block Island from 7–24 May, a period of activity broken by repairs to her machinery, carried out at Newport, Rhode Island from 9–19 May. She underwent more repairs at Newport, then visited New York City from 28–31 May for the festivities surrounding the dedication of the monument honoring the armored cruiser Maine, destroyed in Havana harbor on 15 February 1898.

Shifting to Annapolis, Maryland on 4 June, Wyoming embarked a contingent of United States Naval Academy midshipmen and took the young officers-to-be on a summer cruise off the coast of New England that lasted into late August. Disembarking the "middies" at Annapolis on 24–25 August, Wyoming then conducted torpedo and target practices in the southern drill grounds, out of Hampton Roads, into the late autumn. She was docked at New York for repairs from 16 September to 2 October and then ran a full-power trial as she headed south to Norfolk, Virginia, to resume exercises off the Virginia Capes before sailing for Europe on 26 October.

Reaching Valletta, Malta on 8 November, the battleship visited Naples, Italy, and Villefranche, France, during the course of her Mediterranean cruise. The battleship then left French waters astern on the last day of November and reached New York on 15 December.

Wyoming then underwent voyage repairs at the New York Navy Yard remaining there through the end of 1913. Getting underway on 6 January 1914, the battleship reached Hampton Roads on the morrow and spent the next three days coaling to prepare for the annual fleet exercises in the warmer Caribbean climes.

Wyoming exercised with the fleet out of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base from 26 January to 15 March before setting her course northward for Cape Henry, Virginia. She then ranged with the fleet from the southern drill grounds, off the Virginia Capes, to Tangier Sound, for gunnery drills and practices. She remained engaged in that routine until 3 April, when she headed for the New York Navy Yard and an overhaul.

After that period of repairs, which lasted from 4 April to 9 May, Wyoming subsequently embarked a draft of men for transport to the fleet, departed from Hampton Roads on 13 May, and headed for Mexican waters. She reached Veracruz on 18 May, less than a month after American sailors and Marines had occupied that Mexican port.

Wyoming remained at Veracruz over the months that ensued, into the late autumn of 1914, before she returned northward. After conducting exercises off the Virginia Capes en route, she put into the New York Navy Yard on 6 October and then underwent repairs and alterations which lasted until 17 January 1915.

Shifting down the coast upon completion of that yard period, Wyoming left Hampton Roads in her wake on 21 January for the annual exercises in Cuban waters and in the Caribbean Sea. Returning to the Tidewater area on 7 April, the battleship carried out tactical exercises and maneuvers along the eastern seaboard, primarily off Block Island and the southern drill grounds, into the late autumn, when she again entered the New York Navy Yard for an overhaul.

After repairs lasting from 20 December 1915 to 6 January 1916, Wyoming got underway on the latter day, bound for war games in the southern drill grounds. She subsequently headed farther south, reaching Culebra, Puerto Rico on 16 January. After visiting Port-au-Prince, Haiti on 27 January, Wyoming put into Guantanamo Bay on 28 January and then operated in Cuban waters off Guantanamo and Guacanayabo Bays and the port of Manzanillo, Cuba until 10 April, when she sailed for New York.

Wyoming remained in the New York Navy Yard from 16 April to 26 June, undergoing repairs; she then operated off the New England coast, out of Newport, and off the Virginia Capes through the remainder of 1916. Departing New York on 9 January 1917, Wyoming then conducted routine maneuvers in the Guantanamo Bay region through mid-March. She departed the Caribbean on 27 March and was off Yorktown, Virginia, when the United States entered World War I on 6 April 1917.