USS North Carolina was the lead ship of her class, the first fast battleship built for the United States Navy, and a product of treaty-era naval limits that shaped her final armament of nine 16-inch guns. Completed in April 1941, she served first in the North Atlantic, then in the Pacific after Pearl Harbor. She fought in the Guadalcanal campaign and at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, survived a submarine torpedo attack, and went on to support major operations across the central Pacific through 1945. Saved from disposal after decommissioning, she opened in Wilmington in 1962 as a preserved battleship and museum.