| Battleship BB-43 was laid down on 14 May 1917 at the New York
Navy Yard; launched on 30 April 1919; sponsored by Miss Helen Lenore Roberts,
daughter of the governor of Tennessee; and commissioned on 3 June 1920, Capt
Richard H. Leigh in command. |
| Tennessee and her sister Ship,
California
(BB-44), were the first American battleships built to a "post-Jutland" hull
design. As a result of extensive experimentation and testing, her underwater
hull protection was much greater than that of previous battleships; and both
her main and secondary batteries had firecontrol systems. The
Tennessee class, and the three ships of the
Colorado
(BB-45) -class which followed, were identified by two heavy cage masts supporting
large firecontrol tops. This feature was to distinguish the"Big Five" form
the rest of the battleship force until World War II. Since Tennessee's
14-inch turret guns would be elevated to 30 degrees -- rather that to the
15 degrees of earlier battleships -- her heavy guns could reach out an additional
10,000 yards. Because battleships were then beginning to carry airplanes
to spot long-range gunfire, Tennessee's ability to shoot "over the
horizon" had a practical value. |
| After fitting out, Tennessee conducted trials in Long Island
Sound from 15 to 23 October 1920. While Tennessee was at New York,
one of her 300-kilowatt ship's service generators blew up on 30 October,
"completely destroying the turbine end of the machine" and injuring two men.
Undaunted, the ship's force, navy yard craftsman, and manufactures'
representatives labored to eliminate the "teething troubles" in
Tennessee's engineering system and enabled the battleship to depart
New York on 26 February 1921 for standardization trials at Guantanamo. 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. After touching at New York, she steamed south; transited the Panama
Canal; and on 17 June, arrived at San Pedro, California, her home port for
the next 19 years. |
| Here, she joined the Battleship Force, Pacific Fleet. In 1922,
the Pacific Fleet was redesignated the Battle Fleet (renamed the Battle Force
in 1931), United States Fleet. For the next two decades, the battleship divisions
of the Battle Fleet were to include the preponderance of the Navy's surface
warship strength; and Tennessee was to serve here until World War
II. |
| Peace time 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 which most of
all of the Unites 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 1823 and continuing through Fleet Problem XXI in
April 1940, Tennessee had a prominent share in these battle exercises.
Yet her individual proficiency was not neglected. During the competitive
year 1922 and 1923, she mad 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 competition. During 1925, she took part in joint
Army-Navy maneuvers to test the defenses of Hawaii before visiting Australia
and New Zealand. Subsequent fleet problems and tactical exercises took
Tennessee from Hawaii t t5he Caribbean and Atlantic and from Alaskan
waters to Panama. |
| 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, at President Roosevelt's direction, its base of
operations was shifted to Pearl Harbor in the hope that this move might deter
Japanese expansion in the Far East. Following an overhaul at the Puget Sound
Navy Yard after the conclusion of Fleet Problem XXI, Tennessee arrived
at her new base on 12 August 1940. Due to the increasing deterioration of
the world situation, Fleet Problem XXII -- Scheduled for the spring of 1941
-- was cancelled; and Tennessee's activities during these final months
of peace were confined to smaller scale operations. |
|
