United States career Construction – 1910 Laid down at the
William Cramp & Sons shipyard in
Philadelphia on 12 May 1904, the ship was
launched on 30 September 1905 and was
commissioned into the
United States Navy on 1 January 1908 as USS
Mississippi. The ship left Philadelphia on 15 February to begin
sea trials that lasted from 24 February to 9 March. She went to the
Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for final
fitting-out on 15 March, and embarked on further trials beginning on 1 July. Over the course of the following months, she visited numerous ports along the east coast of the United States before returning to Philadelphia on 10 September for repairs that lasted into 1909. On 16 January 1909,
Mississippi left Philadelphia, bound for
Key West, Florida by way of
Hampton Roads. There, she met the battleship and the two ships proceeded south to
Havana, Cuba on 25 January, where they represented the United States at the inauguration ceremony for President
José Miguel Gómez. On 28 January, she went to
Guantánamo Bay and thereafter cruised the area until 10 February, when she was assigned to the Third Division of the
Atlantic Fleet. She met the returning
Great White Fleet off Hampton Roads and was present for the
naval review in the harbor there on 22 February.
Mississippi returned to Guantanamo Bay on 8 March for gunnery training there in April. From there, she crossed the
Caribbean Sea to steam up the
Mississippi River as far north as
Natchez, Mississippi. She then returned to the east coast of the US, stopping in Philadelphia in June and then in
Eastport, Maine for
Independence Day celebrations on 4 July. More gunnery training followed in
Cape Cod Bay, along with maneuvers with the Atlantic Fleet and various port visits through September. These operations culminated in the
Hudson–Fulton Celebration in September and October. After periodic maintenance at Philadelphia in October, she visited
New Orleans and other ports in the area before returning for more repairs at Philadelphia.
Mississippi got underway on 5 January 1910, again headed for Cuba, where she joined the other units of the Atlantic Fleet for training from 12 January to 24 March. She then steamed to Hampton Roads, arriving there on 4 April, and taking part in target practice from then until 28 April. More repairs followed in Philadelphia, lasting until 16 July. She then conducted torpedo training in Maine in late July before embarking a contingent from the
Rhode Island Naval Militia for sea training that included further torpedo drills. In August, she steamed south to Hampton Roads for more shooting training and battle practice with the fleet through September. Another stint in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard followed from 5 October to 1 November, after which she and the rest of the Third Division crossed the Atlantic to visit Europe, including stops in
Gravesend, United Kingdom and
Brest, France. On the way back to Cuban waters, the ships conducted mock battle training.
1911–1914 On 13 January 1911,
Mississippi arrived in Guantanamo Bay, and she spent the following two months conducting various maneuvers with the Atlantic Fleet. She left the area on 13 March and arrived in Hampton Roads four days later. Further training followed over the next month, after which she returned to Philadelphia for periodic maintenance that lasted from 12 April to 1 May. She thereafter cruised the east coast of the US in company with the other ships of the division and into the
Gulf of Mexico, proceeding as far as
Galveston, Texas.
Mississippi embarked a group from the
New York Naval Militia for a training cruise that lasted from 13 to 22 July, and in August took part in maneuvers with torpedo boats off the coast of Massachusetts. She returned to Hampton Roads on 24 August to meet the rest of the fleet for shooting practice. She participated in a naval review for President
William Howard Taft in the
North River on 1 November. The ship then returned to Hampton Roads for training with the Second Squadron before stopping in
Newport News, Virginia on 24 November. Another period of repair work at Philadelphia followed from 8 December to 16 March 1912, when she departed to rejoin the fleet off Hampton Roads. She took part in a variety of training exercises through 22 April, when she was detached from the fleet for cruising trials off
Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her squadron joined her there on 15 May for exercises that began five days later. On 26 May,
Mississippi, seven other battleships, and the
armored cruiser , embarked a contingent of
marines from the
2nd Marine Regiment and carried them to Cuba, where they assisted the Cuban government in suppressing the
Negro Rebellion. The fleet arrived on 19 June, disembarked the marines, and then remained in Guantanamo Bay until conditions in the country improved, allowing the fleet to leave for training. Fleet and division maneuvers began on 10 July off the coast of
Rhode Island and
Connecticut and on 1 August,
Mississippi went to Philadelphia, where she was placed in reserve. flying boat aboard the ship She remained in the
Atlantic Reserve Fleet until 30 December 1913, when she was sent to
Pensacola, Florida for use as a support ship for the creation of the
Naval Air Station Pensacola. She took on a group of nine officers and twenty-three enlisted men along with aircraft and other equipment. She arrived there on 20 January 1914, where the men set about establishing the base. In April,
Mississippi received orders to carry a 500-man detachment from the 2nd Marines, who had by then transferred to Pensacola, to
Tampico, Mexico after the
Tampico Affair that saw a minor confrontation between Mexican soldiers and USN sailors. She also carried a pair of seaplanes and supporting equipment. The ship got underway for
Veracruz, Mexico on 21 April, arriving there four days later. On April 25, a
Curtiss Model F she carried flew in the first operational use of naval aircraft, performing a 28-minute reconnaissance flight over the port. The next day, she transferred both seaplanes to shore, along with their ground crews and other equipment. The aircraft operated under command of
Patrick N. L. Bellinger in the area for a month and a half during the
occupation of Veracruz, conducting reconnaissance and searching the surrounding sea for
naval mines, supported by men from
Mississippi. In late May, the ship departed for Pensacola, where she remained until 28 June, thereafter steaming north for Hampton Roads. Greece became engaged in a naval
arms race with the
Ottoman Empire in the early 1910s; in 1910 the Ottomans had purchased a pair of German pre-dreadnoughts (renamed and ) and ordered
dreadnought battleships from Britain in 1911 and 1914. The Royal Hellenic Navy ordered the dreadnought from Germany in 1913 and the dreadnought from France in response. As a stop-gap measure, the Greeks purchased
Mississippi and
Idaho from the US Navy. The Greek government bought the ships through an intermediary, the shipbuilder
Fred Gauntlett, who acquired them on 8 July and handed them over to Greece. Two days later,
Mississippi and
Idaho were taken to Newport News and were decommissioned and transferred to the Greek Navy on 21 July. Renamed
Kilkis and
Lemnos, respectively, they quickly left the United States after their transfer due to the rising tensions in Europe following the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria the previous month. After arriving in Greece,
Kilkis became the
flagship of the Greek fleet.
Greek career At the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, Greece's pro-German monarch,
Constantine I, decided to remain neutral, so the ships saw no action. The
Entente powers landed troops in
Salonika in 1915, which was a source of tension between France and Greece. Ultimately, the French seized the Hellenic Navy on 19 October 1916 (see
Noemvriana and
National Schism).
Kilkis was reduced to a skeleton crew and had the breech blocks for her guns removed to render them inoperable. All ammunition and torpedoes were also removed. Ultimately, a pro-Entente government replaced Constantine and declared war on the Central Powers.
Kilkis, however, did not see active service with Greece's new allies, and instead was used solely for harbor defense until the end of the war. After the end of World War I
Kilkis saw service in the
Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War in the
Black Sea. While supporting the French and British forces defending
Sevastopol in April 1919,
Kilkis observed mutinies on several French battleships. Her crew taunted the French mutineers by hanging a dummy from the
yardarm.
Kilkis then returned to Greece. During the subsequent
Greco-Turkish War,
Kilkis served in support of landings to seize Ottoman territory. On 15 May 1919, she and a pair of
destroyers escorted a convoy of six transports carrying the troops that undertook the
occupation of
Smyrna and its environs.
Kilkis carried
Rear Admiral Kaloulides, who thereafter served as the military governor of the city. The Ottoman Navy had been interned by the Allies after the end of World War I, and so provided no opposition to the Royal Hellenic Navy's activities. In March 1920,
Kilkis was stationed in Constantinople as part of an Allied fleet, which was composed primarily of British warships. The ships' crews practiced landing operations to support the garrison occupying the city, but in the event only crews from the British ships went ashore.
Kilkis left the theater to represent Greece during the
Fleet Review in
Spithead to honor
King George V on his birthday, 3 June 1920. In July,
Kilkis and a pair of destroyers escorted a convoy carrying 7,000 infantrymen, 1,000 artillerists, and 4,000 mules to
Panderma. Among the Greek naval vessels that supported the landings with
Kilkis were the armored cruiser and the destroyers , , and , and a
hospital ship. Landings also took place at
Eregli on the other side of the
Sea of Marmora. On 19 July,
Kilkis departed with several transport ships and the British
seaplane carrier , which provided aerial reconnaissance for the Greek forces. Operations came to a close in September 1922 when the Greek Army was forced to evacuate by sea, along with a sizable number of civilians, from Asia Minor. The fleet transported a total of 250,000 soldiers and civilians during the evacuation.
Kilkis and
Lemnos departed Smyrna on the evening of 8 September.
Kilkis underwent repairs and upgrades in 1926–1928 but was already obsolete due to low speed and low freeboard. The ship had her boilers re-tubed during this refit. On 29 November 1929, the Hellenic Navy announced that
Kilkis would be withdrawn from service and broken up for scrap. Consequently, in 1930,
Georgios Averof replaced her as the fleet flagship. Nevertheless,
Kilkis remained in service with the fleet until 1932. The ship was then withdrawn from the active fleet and used as a
training ship. A
failed insurrection in the Greek fleet in March 1935 led to
Kilkis being reactivated in response to the capture of
Georgios Averof being seized by the revolutionaries. After the revolt collapsed,
Kilkis was used as a training ship for anti-aircraft gunners.
World War II On 28 October 1940, Italy invaded Greece, initiating the
Greco-Italian War as part of the Italian dictator
Benito Mussolini's
expansionist ambitions. The Greek army quickly defeated the Italians and pushed them back to
Albania. Less than two weeks later, the Italian fleet was badly damaged in the British
Raid on Taranto, which significantly reduced the threat the Italian
Regia Marina posed to the Greek fleet. From the start of the conflict,
Kilkis was used as a floating battery based in
Salamis. Spare guns from
Kilkis and
Lemnos were employed as coastal batteries throughout Greece. On 6 April 1941, the German
Wehrmacht invaded Greece to support its Italian ally in the stalemated conflict. British planners suggested using the ship to block the
Corinth Canal by
scuttling her at the southern entrance to the canal, but the Greeks refused, preferring to use the ship as a
barracks ship if they should have to retreat from Salamis. The ship was attacked in
Salamis Naval Base by
Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers on 23 April 1941, during the German invasion.
Kilkis attempted to get underway to evade the attacks, but she was hit by several bombs and sank in the harbor. Her wreck was refloated and broken up for scrap in the 1950s. ==Footnotes==