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Photo # NH 95244:  USS Arizona during gunnery practice, circa 1917

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIP TYPES -- BATTLESHIPS --

Pennsylvania Class (BB-38 and BB-39),
1913-14 Building Programs

The Pennsylvania class battleships were an enlargement of the preceding Nevada class, with two more 14"/45 main battery guns, greater length and displacement, four propellers and slightly higher speed. They also had a very large secondary battery of 5"/51 guns, which was soon reduced when many of the guns' locations proved to be impossibly wet.

Serving in the western Atlantic in 1916-18, these ships visited Europe just after the November 1918 Armistice and were thereafter stalwart members of the Navy's Battle Fleet. Reconstructed in 1929-31, they received greater main battery gun elevation, tripod masts to support improved gun directors and modern aircraft catapults. The ships' secondary gun batteries were updated, as was protection against gunfire, aircraft bombs and torpedoes. Pennsylvania, assigned to duty as a fleet flagship, was given a greatly enlarged armored conning tower. Now capable of long-range gunfire in an age when the role of aircraft was steadily growing, the ships spent another decade in the Nation's battle line.

The Pennsylvanias were both present during Japan's 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Arizona blew up in action, the most dramatic and costly casualty of the raid. Pennsylvania was only lightly damaged, and she served in the Pacific throughout the Second World War. Fitted with a new secondary battery of twin-mounted 5"/38 guns in late 1942, she supported many amphibious invasions and was present during the World's last battle between big-gun warships, the Battle of Surigao Strait on 25 October 1944. A torpedo hit in August 1945 proved that her watertight integrity, like that of other old warships, could not be relied upon. With other obsolete battleships, Pennsylvania was an atomic bomb target in 1946 and was scuttled at sea two years later.

The Pennsylvania class numbered two ships, both built on the east coast:

  • Pennsylvania (BB-38), built by the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, Newport News, Virginia. Keel laid in October 1913; launched in March 1915; completed in June 1916.
  • Arizona (BB-39), built by the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York. Keel laid in March 1914; launched in June 1915; completed in October 1916.

    Pennsylvania class "as-built" design characteristics:

  • Displacement: 31,400 tons (normal)
  • Dimensions: 608' (length overall); 97' 1" (extreme beam)
  • Powerplant: 31,500 to 34,000 horsepower geared turbines, driving four propellers; 21 knot maximum speed
  • Armament (Main Battery): Twelve 14"/45 guns in four triple turrets
  • Armament (Secondary Battery): Twenty-two 5"/51 guns in single casemate mountings (eleven guns on each side of the ship); soon reduced to fourteen 5"/51 guns. When modernized in the early 1930s, two more 5"/51 guns were removed and eight 5"/25 anti-aircraft guns were added.

    This page features a modest selection of photographs of Pennsylvania class battleships, plus images related to these ships' basic design features, and provides links to more extensive pictorial coverage of the individual ships.

    For coverage of other classes of U.S. Navy battleships, see: Battleships -- Overview and Special Image Selection.

    If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

    Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

    Photo #: NH 95244

    USS Arizona (BB-39)


    Steaming in formation with other Atlantic Fleet battleships, during gunnery practice, circa 1917.

    Courtesy of H.E. Coffer, 1983.

    U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

    Online Image: 82KB; 740 x 595 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 67583

    USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)


    Underway off New York City during the Naval Review before President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 31 May 1934.
    Pennsylvania was then serving as flagship of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, Admiral David F. Sellers, USN.

    U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

    Online Image: 132KB; 740 x 615 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 57663

    USS Arizona (BB-39)


    Steaming at sea during the 1930s, with her main battery 14"/45 guns trained to port.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 80KB; 740 x 600 pixels

     
    Photo #: NH 50758

    USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)


    View of the battleship's forward 14"/45 guns and her forward superstructure, circa the early 1930s.

    U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

    Online Image: 83KB; 740 x 615 pixels

     
    Photo #: 80-G-19942

    Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941


    USS Arizona (BB-39) sunk and burning furiously, 7 December 1941. Her forward magazines had exploded when she was hit by a Japanese bomb.
    At left, men on the stern of USS Tennessee (BB-43) are playing fire hoses on the water to force burning oil away from their ship

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

    Online Image: 115KB; 740 x 610 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: 80-G-K-2106 (Color)

    USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)

    Drydocked in an Advanced Base Sectional Dock (ABSD) at the Pacific, circa 1944.
    Note the extensive anti-torpedo "blister" built into her hull side and paravane streaming chains running from her forefoot to her foredeck.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

    Online Image: 117KB; 740 x 610 pixels

    Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

     
    Photo #: NH 67584

    USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)


    Firing her 14"/45 and 5"/38 guns while bombarding Guam, south of the Orote Peninsula, on the first day of landings, 21 July 1944.

    Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

    Online Image: 88KB; 740 x 620 pixels

     

    For more views of Pennsylvania class battleships, see:

  • USS Pennsylvania (BB-38);
  • USS Arizona (BB-39).

    For coverage of other classes of U.S. Navy battleships, see: Battleships -- Overview and Special Image Selection.


    If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


    Return to Naval Historical Center home page.

    Page made 29 October 2000
    Coding updated 26 March 2001