page_title: USS Idaho (BB-42)
section_title: Interwar period
hierarchical_section_title: USS Idaho (BB-42) / Service history / Interwar period
caption_attribution_description: English: USS Idaho
context_page_description: USS Idaho (BB-42), a New Mexico-class battleship, was the fourth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the 43rd state. She was the third of three ships of her class. Built by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey, she was launched in June 1917 and commissioned in March 1919. She was armed with a battery of twelve 14-inch guns in four three-gun turrets, and was protected by heavy armor plate, with her main belt armor being 13.5 inches thick.
  Idaho spent most of the 1920s and 1930s in the Pacific Fleet, where she conducted routine training exercises. Like her sister ships, she was modernized in the early 1930s. In mid-1941, before the United States entered World War II, Idaho and her sisters were sent to join the Neutrality Patrols that protected American shipping during the Battle of the Atlantic. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Idaho and her sisters were sent to the Pacific, where she supported amphibious operations in the Pacific. She shelled Japanese forces during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands and the Philippines campaigns and the invasions of Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
context_section_description: Idaho was laid down on 20 January 1915 at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, New Jersey. She was launched on 30 June 1917, and after fitting-out work ended, the new battleship was commissioned into the fleet on 24 March 1919. Shortly afterward, the ship began her shakedown cruise, departing on 13 April for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before returning to New York. There, the President of Brazil, Epitácio Pessoa, boarded the ship to return to Brazil. The trip began on 6 July; Idaho reached Rio de Janeiro on 17 July, where Pessoa left the ship, and continued on to the Panama Canal. She steamed to Monterey, California, where she joined the Pacific Fleet in September. The fleet then conducted a series of training exercises and held a naval review on 13 September for President Woodrow Wilson. Idaho hosted the Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and the Secretary of the Interior John B. Payne for a tour of Alaska, which concluded on 22 July.
  Idaho returned to the peacetime routine of fleet exercises over the next five years; these were held off the coast of North and South America, as far south as Chile. The ship was also present for a variety of ceremonies during this period, including a Naval Review for President Warren Harding in Seattle in 1923. The Pacific Fleet was reorganized as the Battle Fleet in 1922. She took part in major exercises off Hawaii in 1925, departing California on 15 April. The exercises lasted until 1 July, after which Idaho embarked on a cruise to the southern Pacific. Stops included Samoa, Australia, and New Zealand. While returning from Hawaii to California, she carried Commander John Rodgers, who had failed in his attempt to fly a seaplane from California to Hawaii. The ship reached San Francisco on 24 September. For the next six years, Idaho was based in San Pedro, where she continued to conduct readiness training, alternating between the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea.
  On 7 September 1931, she departed San Pedro for the Norfolk Navy Yard, where she received a major reconstruction that began after her arrival on 30 September. The lengthy reconstruction finished on 9 October 1934, and after completing another shakedown cruise in the Caribbean, Idaho returned to San Pedro, arriving on 17 April 1935. Fleet maneuvers increased in frequency, particularly after tensions began to rise with Japan over its expansionist policies in Asia. In mid-1940, the Battle Fleet was transferred from California to Hawaii; Idaho joined the other ships on 1 July. By this time, World War II had broken out in Europe, spawning the Battle of the Atlantic. In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the Neutrality Patrols to protect American shipping. On 7 May 1941, Admiral Harold Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, transferred Idaho, her sisters Mississippi and New Mexico, the aircraft carrier Yorktown, four light cruisers, and two destroyer squadrons to the Atlantic to reinforce the Neutrality Patrols. Idaho left Hawaii on 6 June, bound for Hampton Roads to join the neutrality patrols. In September, she was stationed in Hvalfjörður, Iceland, and was there when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December.
caption: USS Idaho in 1927
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