page_title: USS Michigan (BB-27)
section_title: Post-war period
hierarchical_section_title: USS Michigan (BB-27) / Service history / Post-war period
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S.S. Michigan. Ca. 1918. Enrique Muller. (War Dept.) Exact Date Shot Unknown NARA FILE #: 165-WW-334A-23 WAR &amp; CONFLICT BOOK #: 483
context_page_description: USS Michigan (BB-27), a South Carolina-class battleship, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the 26th state. She was the second member of her class, the first dreadnought battleships built for the US Navy. She was laid down in December 1906, launched in May 1908; sponsored by Mrs. F. W. Brooks, daughter of Secretary of the Navy Truman Newberry; and commissioned into the fleet 4 January 1910. Michigan and South Carolina were armed with a main battery of eight 12-inch guns in superfiring twin gun turrets; they were the first dreadnoughts to feature this arrangement.
  Michigan spent her career in the Atlantic Fleet. She frequently cruised the east coast of the United States and the Caribbean Sea, and in April 1914 took part in the United States occupation of Veracruz during the Mexican Civil War. After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Michigan was employed as a convoy escort and training ship for the rapidly expanding wartime navy. In January 1918, her forward cage mast collapsed in heavy seas, killing six men. In 1919, she ferried soldiers back from Europe.
context_section_description: In May, Michigan was sent to Philadelphia for an overhaul that lasted through June. She thereafter returned to her peacetime training routine. On 6 August, she was reduced to limited commission and stationed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. On 19 May 1920, she steamed to Annapolis to pick up a contingent of midshipmen for a major training cruise. After departing Annapolis, the ship steamed south and transited the Panama Canal before proceeding to Honolulu, Hawaii, where she arrived on 3 July. Michigan visited several naval bases on the west coast of the United States through the summer: Seattle, San Francisco, San Pedro, and San Diego, before returning to Annapolis on 2 September. Three days later, she was back in Philadelphia, where she was temporarily decommissioned.
  Michigan was reactivated in 1921 for another cruise to the Caribbean, departing on 4 April. She returned to Philadelphia on 23 April; shortly thereafter, the ship became embroiled in a minor scandal. The ship's commanding officer at the time, Clark Daniel Stearns, instituted a series of sailors' committees on 3 May to ease tensions between officers and the crew. The commanders of the Atlantic Fleet and Michigan's squadron decided that the committees were a threat to discipline and evidence of Marxist influences. They contacted Edwin Denby, then the Secretary of the Navy, who relieved Stearns of command. On 28 May, she picked up another group of midshipmen for another training cruise. This voyage took the ship to Europe, with stops in a number of ports, including Christiana, Norway, Lisbon, Portugal, and Gibraltar. She returned to Hampton Roads via Guantanamo Bay on 22 August.
  In the years immediately following the end of the Great War, the United States, Britain, and Japan all launched huge naval construction programs. All three countries decided that a new naval arms race would be ill-advised, and so convened the Washington Naval Conference to discuss arms limitations, which produced the Washington Naval Treaty, signed in February 1922. Under the terms of Article II of the treaty, Michigan and her sister South Carolina were to be scrapped. Michigan put to sea for the last time on 31 August, bound for the breaker's yard in Philadelphia. She arrived there on 1 September and was decommissioned on 11 February 1923. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 10 November and broken up for scrap the following year.
caption: Michigan steaming at high speed, c. 1918
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