 Upon commissioning, the ship was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, alongside her sister Delaware. Her first overseas cruise came in November 1910, when she steamed across the Atlantic to visit France and Britain. North Dakota also took part in the invasion of Vera Cruz in 1914. Unlike her sister, North Dakota remained off the American coast for the duration of the United States' involvement in World War I. Hugh Rodman, the commander of the American expeditionary force, specifically requested that North Dakota be kept stateside; he felt her turbine engines were too unreliable for the ship to be deployed to a war zone.
