page_title: USS Kansas (BB-21)
section_title: Peacetime activities
hierarchical_section_title: USS Kansas (BB-21) / Service history / Peacetime activities
caption_attribution_description: USS Kansas (BB-21) Photographed soon after completion, circa 1907.
context_page_description: USS Kansas (BB-21) was a US Connecticut-class pre-dreadnought battleship, the fourth of six ships in the class. She was the second ship of the United States Navy named in honor of Kansas. The ship was launched in August 1905 and commissioned into the fleet in April 1907. Kansas was armed with a main battery of four 12-inch guns and was capable of a top speed of 18 kn.
  Shortly after she entered service, Kansas joined the Great White Fleet for its circumnavigation of the globe in 1908–1909. She made trips to Europe in 1910 and 1911 and after 1912, became involved in suppressing unrest in several Central American countries, including the United States occupation of Veracruz during the Mexican Revolution. After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Kansas was employed as a training ship for new personnel. In September 1918, she began escorting convoys to Europe. After the war ended in November, she then began a series of trips to France to bring American soldiers home.
  The ship's postwar career was short. She conducted training cruises for US Naval Academy cadets in 1920 and 1921, the first to the Pacific and the second to Europe.
context_section_description: A week after returning from the voyage, Kansas steamed to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for an overhaul after the lengthy period at sea. The work was completed on 17 June, and Kansas thereafter began a peacetime routine of maneuvers and various training exercises that continued throughout the following year. On 15 November 1910, she joined the 2nd Battleship Division for a cruise to Europe, stopping in  Cherbourg, France, and Portland, England. The ships then recrossed the Atlantic, stopping in Santo Domingo and Cuba before continuing on to Hampton Roads. A second trip to Europe took place in mid-1911; this time, the division steamed into the Baltic Sea, visiting several ports in the region, including Copenhagen, Denmark, Stockholm, Sweden, Kronstadt, Russia, and Kiel, Germany. The ships arrived back in Provincetown on 13 July and thereafter joined fleet training exercises off the Virginia Capes. Kansas steamed to the Norfolk Navy Yard on 3 November for another overhaul.
  Kansas began a series of extensive maneuvers in early 1912, based out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She returned to Hampton Roads to greet a squadron of German warships—the battlecruiser SMS Moltke and the light cruisers Bremen and Stettin—that visited the port from 28 May to 8 June. Kansas then embarked on a training cruise along the east coast of the United States for midshipmen from the US Naval Academy on 21 June. She returned the midshipmen to Annapolis on 30 August. On 15 November, she began a training cruise to the Gulf of Mexico, arriving back in Philadelphia for an overhaul on 21 December. She returned to duty on 5 May 1913 and cruised the east coast for the next several months. On 25 October, she crossed the Atlantic and cruised the Mediterranean Sea, which included a stop in Genoa, Italy. After returning to Guantanamo Bay, she was sent to the coast of Mexico to protect US interests during the Mexican Revolution. The ship was back in Norfolk on 14 March 1914, and another overhaul at Philadelphia followed on 11 April. On 1 July, Kansas steamed out of Norfolk to carry the remains of the recently deceased Venezuelan ambassador to the United States back to his home country. She arrived in La Guaira on 14 July before returning to the Mexican coast to support the forces occupying Veracruz. She left the area on 29 October to respond to unrest in Port au Prince, Haiti, arriving on 3 November. She remained there for a month before departing on 1 December for Philadelphia. The ship then resumed the normal peacetime routine of training exercises off the east coast and off Cuba until 30 September 1916, when she underwent another overhaul in Philadelphia.
caption: Kansas c. 1907
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