USS Maryland (BB-46), also known as "Old Mary" or "Fighting Mary" to her crewmates, was a . She was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the seventh state. She was commissioned in 1921, and serving as the flagship of the fleet, cruised to Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil.
During World War II, she was on Battleship Row during the Attack on Pearl Harbor, and was lightly damaged by Japanese bombs. Returning to duty in 1942, she saw service in the Pacific War, first supporting the rest of the fleet at the Battle of Midway, and then patrolling the Fiji Islands to guard against Japanese incursion. Next, she went on the offensive, commencing shore bombardments in the Battle of Tarawa and later in the Battle of Kwajalein. During the Battle of Saipan she took torpedo damage to her bow, necessitating repairs and refits. She then participated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf where she was hit by a kamikaze. She took another kamikaze hit at the Battle of Okinawa, and was under repair toward the end of the war. Maryland had completed repairs at Bremerton, WA and was sailing back to the Pacific Theater when word was received that the war had ended. The ship turned around and returned to the Port of Long Beach, CA.
After service in Operation Magic Carpet, she was decommissioned in 1947, and sold for scrap in 1959. She received seven battle stars for World War II service.
Design
In 1916, design work was completed on the next class of battleships to be built for the United States Navy beginning in 1917. These ships were nearly direct copies of the preceding , with the exception of the main battery, which increased from twelve guns to eight guns. The Colorado class proved to be the last class of battleships completed of the standard type.
Maryland was long overall and she had a beam of and a draft of . She displaced as designed and up to at full load. The ship was powered by four General Electric turbo-electric drives with steam provided by eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The ship's propulsion system was rated at for a top speed of , though on speed trials she reached and a speed of . She had a normal cruising range of at , but additional fuel space could be used in wartime to increase her range to at that speed. Her crew numbered 64 officers and 1,241 enlisted men.
She was armed with a main battery of eight 16 in /45 caliber Mark 1 guns in four twin-gun turrets on the centerline, two forward and two aft in superfiring pairs. The secondary battery consisted of sixteen /51 caliber guns, mounted individually in casemates clustered in the superstructure amidships. She carried an anti-aircraft battery of eight /50 caliber guns in individual high-angle mounts. As was customary for capital ships of the period, she had a torpedo tube mounted in her hull below the waterline on each broadside. Marylands main armored belt was thick, while the main armored deck was up to thick. The main battery gun turrets had thick faces on barbettes. Her conning tower had thick sides.
Service history
Inter-war period
Maryland was one of four dreadnought battleships of the Colorado class to be constructed. Her keel was laid down on 24 April 1917, by Newport News Shipbuilding Company of Newport News, Virginia. She was launched on 20 March 1920, and she was commissioned on 21 July 1921. She was the third ship named for the state of Maryland. The [[USS Maryland (1799)|first Maryland]] was a sloop commissioned in 1799 and the second Maryland was an armored cruiser commissioned in 1905.
Following her commissioning, Maryland undertook an East Coast shakedown cruise. Shortly thereafter, Maryland was made flagship of Admiral Hilary P. Jones. Maryland found herself in great demand for special occasions. She appeared at Annapolis, Maryland, for the 1922 United States Naval Academy graduation and at Boston, Massachusetts, for the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill and the Fourth of July. From 18 August to 25 September, she paid her first visit to a foreign port transporting Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes to Rio de Janeiro for Brazil's Centennial Exposition. The next year, after fleet exercises off the Panama Canal Zone, Maryland transited the canal in the latter part of June to join the battle fleet stationed on the west coast. She continued to be a flagship until 1923 when the flag was shifted to Pennsylvania.