Prepared by
Vincent James "Jim" Vlach, USS Arizona Survivor
The second ARIZONA (Battleship No. 39) was laid down on 16 March 1914 at the New York Navy Yard; launched on 19 June 1915; sponsored by Miss Esther Ross of Prescott, Arizona; and commissioned at her builder's yard on 17 October 1916, Captain John D. McDonald in command.
ARIZONA departed New York on 16 November 1916 for shakedown training off the Virginia Capes and Newport, proceeding thence to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Returning north to Norfolk on 16 December 1916 to test fire her battery and to conduct torpedo defense exercises in Tangier Sound. The battleship returned to her builder's yard the day before Christmas of 1916 for post-shakedown overhaul. Completing these repairs and alterations on 3 April 1917, she cleared the yard on that date for Norfolk, arriving there on the following day to join Battleship Division 8.
Within days, the United States forsook its tenuous neutrality in the global conflict then raging and entered World War I. The new battleship operated out of Norfolk throughout the war, serving as a gunnery training ship and patrolling the waters of the eastern seaboard from the Virginia Capes to New York. An oilburner, she had not been deployed to European waters owning to the scarcity of fuel oil in the British Isles - the base of other American battleships sent to aid the Grand Fleet.
A week after the armistice of 11 November 1918 stilled the guns on the western front, ARIZONA stood out of Hampton Roads for Portland, England, and reached her destination on 30 November 1918 then putting to sea with her division on 12 December 1918 to rendezvous with the transport GEORGE WASHINGTON, the ship carrying President Woodrow Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference. ARIZONA, one of the newest and most powerful American dreadnoughts, served as part of the honor escort convoying the American President to Brest, France, on 13 December 1918.
Embarking 238 homeward-bound veterans in the precursor of a "Magic Carpet" operation of a later war, ARIZONA sailed from Brest for New York on 14 December 1918, and arrived off Ambrose Light on the afternoon of Christmas Day 1918. The next day, she passed in review before Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, who was embarked in the yacht MAYFLOWER off the Statue of Liberty, before entering New York Harbor in a great homecoming celebration. The battleship then sailed for Hampton Roads on 22 January 1919, returning to her base at Norfolk on the following day.
ARIZONA sailed for Guantanamo Bay with the Fleet on 4 February 1919, and arrived on 8 February 1919. After engaging in battle practices and maneuvers there, the battleship sailed for Trinidad on 17 March 1919, arriving there five days later for a three-day port visit. She then returned to Guantanamo Bay on 29 March 1919 for a brief period, sailing for Hampton Roads on 9 April 1919. Arriving at her destination on the morning of the 12th, she got underway late that afternoon for Brest, France, ultimately making arrival there on 21 April 1919.
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