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Statistics:
Displacement: 12,723 tons
Length: 392'10"
Beam: 72'3"
Draft: 23'10"
Speed: 18 knots
Complement: 561
Armament: Four 12" guns; sixteen 6" guns; six 3" guns; eight 3-pounders; six 1-pounders; two .30-cal machine guns
Class: Maine
Text from The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships published by the Naval Historical Center
The third Ohio (BB-12) was laid down 22 April 1899 by
Union Iron Works, San Francisco, Calif.; 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, Va., 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 fleet 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, symbolized 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 home port for the next 4 years
during duty training men of the New York Naval Militia and
performing general service with the Atlantic Fleet.
In 1914 she sailed to the Gulf of Mexico to join in the patrol
off Vera 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 Fleet
at Philadelphia, recommissioning for each of the next two
summers' midshipmen cruises, 1915 and 1916.
Soon after the United States entered World War I, Ohio
recommissioned 24 April 1917. Throughout the war, she operated
out of Norfolk, training crews for the expanding fleet, taking
part in battleship maneuvers. She arrived at Philadelphia 28
November 1918; was placed in reserve there 7 January 1919;
decommissioned 31 May 1922; and was sold for scrapping 24 March
1923.
-USN-
Updated: 15 May 2000
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