USS Arkansas, BB-33

USS Arkansas, BB-33, one of three American battleships in Operation Neptune, was the oldest battleship in the U.S. Navy. She was laid down at Camden, New Jersey, on 25 January 1910, launched on 14 January 1911, and commissioned on 17 September 1912, with Captain Roy C. Smith in command. Arkansas joined the Atlantic Fleet, which President Woodrow Wilson ordered to Tampico Bay in April 1914 when some American sailors were arrested by the Mexican government. Before the matter was resolved, a battalion of Arkansas bluejackets debarked at Veracruz, and for their conspicuous gallantry during that incursion, two of the ship's officers, Jonas H. Ingram and John Grady, received the Medal of Honor. During World War I, Arkansas patrolled the east coast of the United States and trained gunners for service on armed merchant ships. In late summer of 1918, she stood out for Rosyth, Scotland, and operated as part of the British Grand Fleet until the armistice on 11 November 1918. Later that month she was present for the internment of the German High Seas Fleet in the Firth of Forth. Between the wars, Arkansas engaged in the annual training cycle and took Naval Academy midshipmen on their summer cruises. In the early forties she was detailed covering convoys, among them a troop movement to Morocco for Operation Torch. Armed with twelve 12-inch guns, twenty-one 5-inch guns, and two 21-inch torpedo tubes, Arkansas entered the Baie de la Seine on 6 June 1944 and took a position 4,000 yards from Omaha Beach. At 0552 she joined USS Texas in bombarding Pointe du Hoc, and throughout the day she supported the invasion with accurate fire on targets of opportunity, including an 88-millimeter gun that attacked her and missed. A few days later, Arkansas sailed to Portsmouth to replenish ammunition for her key role in the 25 June bombardment of Cherbourg, which fell to the Allies the next day. In August she fired in support of Operation Anvil, the invasion of Southern France. She finished her World War II service providing fire for the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Earmarked as a target ship for the atomic-bomb test at Bikini Atoll, Arkansas was sunk on 25 July 1946.

Bedford, Virginia · United States