Construction and Atlantic operations in 1943 The
keel for
Alabama was
laid down on 1 February 1940 at the
Norfolk Navy Yard. She was
launched on 16 February 1942;
Crane Ship No. 1 (ex-) assisted with the installation of the ship's heavy armor and armament. She was
commissioned just six months later on 16 August.
Fitting-out work then commenced, and on 11 November she began her
shakedown cruise in the
Chesapeake Bay. She then began initial training to prepare the ship's crew for wartime service, first out of
Casco Bay, Maine. On 11 January 1943,
Alabama returned to Chesapeake Bay for further training before moving to Norfolk. She was then assigned to Task Group (TG) 22.2 and sent back to Casco Bay on 13 February for tactical training.
Alabamas first deployment came in April with the temporary assignment to the British
Home Fleet to reinforce the Allied naval forces available to escort the
Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union. At the time, the British had sent several
capital ships to the
Mediterranean Sea to support the
Allied invasion of Sicily, stripping away forces necessary to counter German naval strength in Norway, most significantly the battleship . Accordingly,
Alabama and her
sister ship got underway on 2 April as part of Task Force (TF) 22. Screened by five
destroyers, the two battleships steamed to the
Orkney Islands by way of Little Placentia Sound and
Naval Station Argentia,
Newfoundland, arriving in the main British naval base at
Scapa Flow on 19 May. There, they were organized as TF 61, Home Fleet, and the ships began thorough training to familiarize the American ships with their British counterparts for joint operations. TF 61 was commanded by Rear Admiral
Olaf M. Hustvedt; over the course of the next three months, they frequently operated with the battleships and .
Alabama,
South Dakota, and several British units covered an operation to reinforce the island of
Spitzbergen in the Arctic Ocean in early June. The following month,
Alabama took part in Operation Governor, a
demonstration to distract German attention during the Sicily invasion. The Allies also hoped to lure out
Tirpitz to sink her, but the Germans took no notice of the ships and remained in port. On 1 August,
Alabama and
South Dakota were detached to return to the United States; they departed immediately and arrived in Norfolk on 9 August, where
Alabama underwent an overhaul in preparation for operations against Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater.
Alabama emerged from the shipyard on 20 August and began the voyage to the Pacific by way of the
Panama Canal, which she transited on 25 August. She reached
Efate in the
New Hebrides on 14 September.
Pacific operations Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign On arriving in the south Pacific,
Alabama embarked on an extensive training program that lasted for a month and a half to prepare the battleship to operate with the
fast carrier task force. She then steamed to
Fiji on 7 November before departing four days later to support the
Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, which began with the
invasion of Tarawa on 20 November.
Alabama escorted the
aircraft carriers while they struck Japanese airfields on nearby islands in the
Marshalls to neutralize their ability to interfere with the landing. She then supported the landing on
Betio in the
Tarawa Atoll on 20 November, followed by the
landing at Makin.
Alabama twice engaged Japanese aircraft that approached the fleet on the night of 26 November.
Alabama and five other
fast battleships bombarded
Nauru on 8 December, which the Japanese used as a source of
phosphate. The destroyer , which had been hit by Japanese artillery fire, came alongside
Alabama and transferred three wounded men to the battleship. The ships then escorted the carriers and back to Efate, which they reached on 12 December.
Alabama got underway on 5 January 1944 for
Pearl Harbor, arriving on 12 January for maintenance that included replacing one of her propellers. She arrived in
Funafuti in the
Ellice Islands on 21 January, where she joined the fleet for the next operation in the campaign. She was assigned to Task Group (TG) 58.2, which
sortied on 25 January to begin Operation Flintlock, the
invasion of Kwajalein.
Alabama,
South Dakota, and the battleship shelled the island of
Roi-Namur over the course of 29 and 30 January, targeting defensive positions, airfields, and other facilities. For the remainder of the campaign, she patrolled to the north of Kwajalein to guard against a possible Japanese counterattack that did not materialize. Over the next two months, the fast carrier task force embarked on a series of raids on Japanese-held islands in the central Pacific to prepare for the next major offensive. The ships of TG 58.2 sortied on 12 February to participate in
Operation Hailstone, a major raid on the island of
Truk, which had been the primary staging area for the Japanese fleet in the central Pacific.
Alabama escorted the carriers that struck the island over the course of 16–17 February, inflicting heavy damage to the Japanese forces and infrastructure there. The fleet then continued on to raid Japanese bases on
Saipan,
Tinian, and
Guam. During a Japanese air attack on the fleet on 21 February,
Alabamas No. 9 5-inch turret accidentally fired into the No. 5 mount, killing five and wounding eleven men. That day,
Alabama took part in a sweep to the southeast of Saipan to search for Japanese vessels that might be in the area. Having found none, the fleet steamed to
Majuro to replenish fuel and ammunition. While there, she served as the
flagship of
Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, the commander of the fast carrier task force, from 3 to 8 March.
Alabama and the rest of the fleet departed Majuro on 22 March to attack the next set of targets:
Palau,
Yap,
Ulithi, and
Woleai in the
Caroline Islands. By this time,
Alabama had been transferred to TG 58.3 as part of the screen for the carrier . While en route to the Carolines, the ships came under attack from a group of Japanese aircraft on the night of 29 March and
Alabama shot one of them down and assisted with another. The next day, the carriers began their raids and
Alabama stood by, engaging Japanese aircraft as they attacked the fleet. She helped to drive off a lone Japanese aircraft late that day before it could close to attack. The fleet then returned to Majuro for replenishment before departing on 13 April;
Alabama now escorted the veteran carrier for a series of strikes along the coast of western
New Guinea in support of Army operations in the
New Guinea campaign. The final action in the series of raids saw the fleet return to the Carolines to strike
Pohnpei, which
Alabama and five other battleships bombarded on 1 May. The group then returned once again to Eniwetok on 4 May to begin preparations for the invasion of the Marianas.
Mariana and Palau Islands campaign Alabama sortied with the rest of TF 58 in early June, now as part of TG 58.7; the fleet had arrived off the initial target, Saipan, by 12 June. The next day,
Alabama took part in a preparatory bombardment of the island intended to weaken Japanese defenses so that
minesweepers could begin to clear approaches to the landing beach.
Alabamas gunners were not as experienced with shore bombardment as other dedicated bombardment ships, and her shooting was not particularly effective. She thereafter screened the carriers as they struck Japanese positions around the island, and ground troops
landed on the island on 15 June. The landing was a breach of Japan's inner defensive perimeter that triggered the Japanese fleet to launch a major counter-thrust with the
1st Mobile Fleet, the main carrier strike force. The Japanese fleet arrived on 19 June, leading to the
Battle of the Philippine Sea.
Alabama was the first vessel to pick up the incoming Japanese aircraft on her radar, away, at 10:06. The battleship quickly corroborated the report, and 40 minutes later the Japanese aircraft arrived over the fleet. A total of seven waves hit the American fleet, though only three of them hit TG 58.7. Of those,
Alabama was able to engage Japanese aircraft in two of the attacks. During one of the attacks, a pair of aircraft penetrated the
Combat Air Patrols and attacked
South Dakota, and
Alabama was among the vessels that fired on them. About an hour after that attack, two
torpedo bombers attempted to attack
South Dakota again, but
Alabama helped to drive them off with a
barrage of anti-aircraft fire. During this latter attack, a single
dive bomber was able to use the gunners' distraction with the torpedo bombers to approach
Alabama, but the pilot nevertheless missed with his bombs and caused no damage. Vice Admiral
Willis A. Lee, the TG 58.7 commander, commended
Alabamas radar operators for their prompt detection of the Japanese aircraft, which allowed the American carriers to launch their
fighters with enough time to intercept the attackers away from the fleet.
Alabama remained on station, escorting the carriers while they raided Saipan, Guam, Tinian, and
Rota throughout the campaign. She was then detached from the fleet to
Eniwetok in the Marshalls for periodic maintenance. The ship then became the flagship of
Rear Admiral Edward Hanson, the commander of Battleship Division (BatDiv) 9, and left the island on 14 July in company with
Bunker Hill. The next stage in the campaign, the
invasion of Guam, began on 21 July and
Alabama performed her role of carrier escort during operations there for the next three weeks. On 11 August, she left to return to Eniwetok before embarking on the next assault on 30 August, code-named Operation Stalemate II; this consisted of a series of landings on
Pelelieu, Ulithi, and Yap. By this time, the fast carrier task force had been transferred from
Fifth Fleet to
Third Fleet and accordingly renumbered as TF 38, so
Alabama was now part of TG 38.3. She escorted the carriers while they launched a series of strikes on the islands from 6 to 8 September to prepare for the amphibious assaults.
Philippines campaign After the strikes in the Carolines, the fast carrier task force left the area to begin initial raids in the
Philippines, with the first strikes occurring from 12 to 14 September. Aircraft from the carriers hit Japanese bases on the islands of
Cebu,
Leyte,
Bohol, and
Negros. Another series of strikes, concentrated around the capital of
Manila, followed on 21 and 22 September, and in the central Philippines on the 24th.
Alabama returned to Saipan on 28 September before proceeding to Ulithi, which was by now a major staging area for the US fleet, on 1 October. Five days later, the fast carrier task force sortied to begin a major raid on the island of
Formosa (Taiwan) and other islands to neutralize the airfields there in advance of the invasion of the Philippines.
Alabama continued to escort the carriers as part of TG 38.3, providing heavy anti-aircraft support. On 14 October, the fleet turned south to begin raids on
Luzon in the Philippines and
Alabama engaged aircraft that attempted to attack the fleet. The ship's gunners claimed to have destroyed three Japanese aircraft and damaged another.
Battle of Leyte Gulf Alabama supported the
landing at Leyte on 15 October before returning to the carrier screen to escort them for another series of air strikes on islands throughout the Philippines on 21 October, by now having been transferred to TG 38.4. The landings on Leyte led to the activation of
Operation Shō-Gō 1, the Japanese navy's planned riposte to an Allied landing in the Philippines. The plan was a complicated operation with three separate fleets: the 1st Mobile Fleet, now labeled the Northern Force under Vice Admiral
Jisaburō Ozawa, the Center Force under Vice Admiral
Takeo Kurita, and the Southern Force under Vice Admiral
Shōji Nishimura. Ozawa's carriers, by now depleted of most of their aircraft, were to serve as a decoy for Kurita's and Nishimura's battleships, which were to use the distraction to attack the invasion fleet directly. Kurita's ships were detected in the
San Bernardino Strait on 24 October, and in the ensuing
Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, American carrier aircraft sank the powerful battleship , causing Kurita to temporarily reverse course. This convinced Admiral
William F. Halsey, the commander of Third Fleet, to send the fast carrier task force to destroy the 1st Mobile Fleet, which had by then been detected.
Alabama steamed north with the carriers, and on the way Halsey established TF 34, consisting of
Alabama and five other fast battleships, seven cruisers, and eighteen destroyers, commanded by Vice Admiral
Willis Lee. TF 34 was arrayed ahead of the carriers, serving as their screen. On the morning of 25 October, Mitscher began his first attack on the Northern Force, initiating the
Battle off Cape Engaño; over the course of six strikes on the Japanese fleet, the Americans sank all four carriers and damaged two old battleships that had been converted into hybrid carriers. Unknown to Halsey and Mitscher, Kurita had resumed his approach through the San Bernardino Strait late on 24 October and passed into
Leyte Gulf the next morning. While Mitscher was occupied with the decoy Northern Force, Kurita moved in to attack the invasion fleet; in the
Battle off Samar, he was held off by a group of
escort carriers, destroyers, and
destroyer escorts, TU 77.4.3, known as Taffy 3. Frantic calls for help later that morning led Halsey to detach Lee's battleships to head south and intervene. However, Halsey waited more than an hour after receiving orders from Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz, the
Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, to detach TF 34; still steaming north during this interval, the delay added two hours to the battleships' voyage south. A need to refuel destroyers further slowed TF 34's progress south. Heavy resistance from Taffy 3 threw Kurita's battleships and cruisers into disarray and led him to break off the attack before
Alabama and the rest of TF 34 could arrive. Halsey detached
Iowa and as TG 34.5 to pursue Kurita through the San Bernardino Strait while Lee took the rest of his ships further southwest to try to cut off his escape, but both groups arrived too late. The historian H. P. Wilmott speculated that had Halsey detached TF 34 promptly and not delayed the battleships by refueling the destroyers, the ships could have easily arrived in the strait ahead of Center Force and, owing to the marked superiority of their radar-directed main guns, destroyed Kurita's ships.
Later operations Having failed to intercept the retiring Japanese fleet,
Alabama and the rest of TF 34 returned to their positions screening the carriers. On 30 October, the fleet withdrew to Ulithi to replenish ammunition and fuel. On 3 November, the fleet departed for another series of raids on Japanese airfields and other facilities on Luzon as the amphibious force prepared for its next landing on the island of
Mindoro in the western Philippines. Over the next few weeks,
Alabama cruised with the carriers, protecting them from Japanese aircraft, while the carriers struck targets on Luzon and the
Visayas in the central Philippines. The fleet returned to Ulithi once again on 24 November and through early December
Alabama was occupied with routine maintenance and training exercises with other vessels in the fleet. During this period, the fleet was reorganized and
Alabama was assigned to TG 38.1. The fleet sortied again on 10 December for more strikes on Luzon that lasted from 14 to 16 December; the carriers massed so many aircraft that they could keep Japanese airfields constantly suppressed to prevent them from interfering with the passage of the Mindoro invasion fleet. On 17 December, the fleet withdrew to refuel at sea, but late in the day,
Typhoon Cobra swept through the area, battering the fleet. The storm conditions—
Alabama recorded wind gusts as high as and heavy seas that caused her to roll up to thirty degrees—sank three destroyers and inflicted serious damage to several other vessels, though
Alabama emerged with only minor damage to her superstructure, and both of her Kingfishers were wrecked. The fleet returned to Ulithi on 24 December and
Alabama was detached for an overhaul at the
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. She entered the dry-dock there on 18 January 1945 for work that lasted until 25 February, at which point she was floated out of the dry-dock for further repairs, which were completed on 17 March. The ship then began a series of sea trials and training exercises along the coast of California before departing on 4 April for Pearl Harbor. She arrived there on 10 April, spent a week on additional training exercises, and then proceeded on to Ulithi, arriving there on 28 April.
Operations off Japan and the end of the war At Ulithi,
Alabama re-joined the fast carrier task force, which had by this point reverted to Fifth Fleet. The fast carrier task force got underway on 9 May to support the forces fighting in the
Battle of Okinawa, who had gone ashore on 1 April. The Japanese had massed significant reserves of aircraft for
kamikaze strikes against the invasion fleet. During one such attack on 14 May, while approximately 120 miles southeast of the Japanese home island of
Kyushu,
Alabama shot down two Japanese aircraft and helped to destroy two others, but one kamikaze nevertheless penetrated the fleet's anti-aircraft defenses and struck
Enterprise. The operations off Okinawa continued for the next two weeks and on 4–5 June, the fleet was hit by another typhoon and
Alabama—part of TG 38.1 at this time—again suffered only superficial damage, though many other vessels in the group were badly damaged. The fleet resumed its normal operations in support of the Okinawa fight on 7 June, including air strikes on Japanese airfields on
Kyushu the next day that
Alabama supported. With an escort of five destroyers on 9 June,
Alabama, , and steamed to shell Japanese facilities on the island of
Minami Daito Jima; they repeated the attack the next day. The fleet thereafter returned to Leyte Gulf to begin preparations for a series of attacks on the Japanese
Home Islands. Third Fleet resumed control of the carrier fleet for these operations, which began on 1 July when the fleet sortied from Leyte Gulf. The carriers conducted wide-ranging attacks on various military and industrial targets throughout Japan, particularly concentrating on the area around Tokyo. On the night of 17–18 July,
Alabama, four other American battleships, the British battleship , and a pair of cruisers bombarded six industrial facilities northeast of Tokyo. On 9 August,
Alabama shelled targets at
Kamaishi in company with two battleships and six American and British cruisers. The same day,
Alabama transferred a medical party to the destroyer , which took them to the destroyer , which had been hit by a kamikaze and needed medical assistance. When she received word of the Japanese surrender on 15 August,
Alabama was still at sea off the coast of Japan. She contributed sailors and marines to the initial occupation force, and she cruised with the carriers while they used their aircraft to search for
prisoner of war camps. On 5 September,
Alabama steamed into
Tokyo Bay, where she re-embarked crew-members who had gone ashore. She remained there until 20 September, when she got underway for Okinawa, where she took on 700 men, most of whom were
Seabees, to carry them back to the United States as part of
Operation Magic Carpet. The ship arrived in San Francisco on 15 October and remained there for the
Navy Day celebrations held there on 27 October, where she hosted some 9,000 visitors. Two days later, she steamed to
San Pedro, California, where she lay until 27 February 1946, when she got underway for an overhaul at Puget Sound to prepare her for deactivation.
Reserve and museum ship She was decommissioned on 9 January 1947 at the Naval Station in
Seattle and assigned to the
Pacific Reserve Fleet, stationed in
Bremerton, Washington. Plans were drawn up during the period she was in reserve to modernize
Alabama and the other ships of her class should they be needed for future active service. In March 1954, a program to equip the four ships with secondary batteries consisting of ten twin guns were proposed, but the plan came to nothing. Another plan to convert the ship into a
guided missile battleship arose in 1956–1957, but the cost of the conversion proved to be prohibitive. She would have had all three main battery turrets removed and replaced with a twin
RIM-8 Talos missile launcher forward, two
RIM-24 Tartar launchers aft, anti-submarine weapons, and equipment to handle
helicopters. The cost of the project amounted to $120 million. On 1 June 1962,
Alabama was stricken from the
Naval Vessel Register for disposal; with the ship slated to be
broken up, the state of Alabama passed a bill to establish the "USS Alabama Battleship Commission" with a view toward preserving the battleship as a
museum ship. Governor
George Wallace signed the law on 12 September 1963, and the commission set about raising funds to acquire the ship; ultimately around $800,000 was raised, of which an eighth came from children in the state, the rest coming primarily from corporate donations. On 16 June 1964, the Navy awarded the ship to her namesake state, with a provision that the Navy would retain the ability to recall the ship to service in the event of an emergency.
Alabama was formally handed over on 7 July during a ceremony in Seattle, and she was then towed to
Mobile, Alabama to be restored as a museum, by way of the Panama Canal. On the way to the canal, one of the tugboats accidentally sank. The ship's screws were removed for the voyage to avoid any damage. The carrier , a veteran of the fast carrier task force and still in service, escorted the ship while she was towed through the
Gulf of Mexico.
Alabama arrived in Mobile on 14 September having traveled some , the longest tow of a vessel that was not an active warship. The channel in
Mobile Bay to her permanent berth had not yet been completed, and she had to wait until the end of the month before dredging work was finished. Once the ship was moored in her berth, work began to prepare the ship for visitors, including
sandblasting painted surfaces, applying
primer, and then re-painting the entire ship. The museum was opened on 9 January 1965. During her career as a museum ship,
Alabama has been used as a set for several movies including
Under Siege in 1992 and
USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage in 2016.
Alabama was damaged by
Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, taking on water and a
list to
port; repairs were effected by
Volkert, Inc. ==See also==