 |
|
| Act of 4 May 1898:
"._._. The President is hereby authorized to have constructed by contract three seagoing coast-line battle ships carrying the heaviest armor and most powerful ordnance upon a displacement of about eleven thousand tons, to have the highest practicable speed for vessels of their class, and to cost, exclusive of armor and armament, not exceeding three million dollars each, one of said battle ships to be named the Maine. ._._. Not more than two of said battle ships, ._._. shall be built in one yard or by one contracting party, ._._. In all there parts said vessels shall be of domestic manufacture ._._. One ._._. of the aforesaid seagoing battle ships, ._._. shall be built on or near the coast of the Pacific Ocean ._._." |
| The third Ohio (BB-12) was laid down 22 April 1899 by Union Iron Works, San Francisco, California.; launched 18 May 1901; sponsored by Miss Helen Deschler; and commissioned 4 October 1904, Captain Leavitt C. Logan in command. |
| Designated flagship of the Asiatic Fleet, Ohio departed San Francisco 1 April 1905 for Manila, where she embarked the party of then Secretary of War William Howard Taft, which included Miss Alice Roosevelt, the President's daughter. She conducted this party on much of its Far Eastern tour of inspection, and continued the cruise in Japanese, Chinese and Philippine waters until returning to the United States in 1907. |
| Ohio sailed out of Hampton Roads, Virginia, 16 December 1907 with the battleships of the Atlantic Fleet. Guns crashed a salute to President Theodore Roosevelt while he reviewed the Great White Fleet as it began the cruise around the world, which, perhaps more than any other event, marked the emergence of the United States as a major world power. |
| Commanded by Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans, and later, Rear Admiral Charles S. Sperry, the feet made calls on the east and west coasts of South America, rounding the Horn in between, en route to San Francisco. On 7 July 1908, Ohio and her sisters shaped their course west to Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia. On each visit, the American ships were welcomed with great enthusiasm, but none of their ports of call received them with such enthusiastic friendliness as Tokyo where they anchored 18 October. The fleet's presence in Japan symbolised both American friendship and strength and helped to ease dangerously strained relations between the two countries. |
| The fleet put in at Amoy, returned to Yokohama held target practice in the Philippines, and was homeward bound 1 December. After steaming through the Suez Canal 4 January 1909, the fleet made Mediterranean calls, before anchoring in Hampton Roads 22 February. |
| Ohio sailed on to New York, her homeport for the next years during duty training men of the .New York Naval Militia and performing general service with tire Atlantic Fleet. |
| In 1914 she sailed to the Gulf of Mexico to join in the patrol
off Veras Cruz, protecting American Interests endangered by Mexican political
turmoil. Ohio returned north in the summer for a, Naval Academy midshipmen
cruise, then joined the Reserve Feet at Philadelphia, recommissioning for
each of the next two summers' midshipmen cruises, 1915 and 1916.
During her 1915 cruise, Ohio became the second battleship to transit the Panama Canal as she traveled to the west coast of the United States; she was accompanied by battleships Missouri and Wisconsin. Soon after the United States entered World War I, Ohio recommissioned on 23 or 24 April 1917, participating in maneuvers and exercised in company with battleships Wisconsin, Kearsarge, Alabama, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Maine between 13 and 19 August 1917. Throughout the war, she operated out of Norfolk, training crews for the expanding fleet and taking part in battleship maneuvers. She arrived at Philadelphia 28 November 1918; was placed in reserve there until January 1919; decommissioned 31 May 1922 she was sold for scrapping on 24 March 1923. |
| USS Ohio, Battleship (BB-12) Specifications | |||
 |
1904
Armament:
|
|
1917
1918
1919
1921
|
 |
Naval Historical Center FAQ -- Great White Fleet | |
|
United States Navy Department, Bureau of Navigation, Men on Board Ships of the Atlantic Fleet Bound for the Pacific, December 16, 1907, (Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1908) | |
|
Larry W. Jewell, Who's Who of United States Battleships, (Internet publication), edition: 30 August, 1993. | |
|
James L. Mooney, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), Vol.1 -- A-B, p. 191 | |
|
James L. Mooney, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970), Vol.5: N-Q, p. 144 | |
