USS North Dakota ( BB - 29 ) USS " North Dakota " ( BB - 29 ) was a dreadnought battleship of the United States Navy , the second member of the , her only sister ship being . " North Dakota " was laid down at the Fore River Shipyard in December 1907 , was launched in November 1909 , and commissioned into the US Navy in April 1910 . She was armed with a main battery of ten guns and was capable of a top speed of . " North Dakota " was the first vessel of the US Navy to be named after the 39th state . " North Dakota " had a peaceful career ; she was present during the United States occupation of Veracruz in 1914 , but did not see action . After the United States entered World War I in April 1917 , " North Dakota " remained in the US , training crewmen for the rapidly expanding wartime Navy , and therefore did not see combat . She remained on active duty through the early 1920s , until she was decommissioned under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty in November 1923 , and subsequently converted into a radio - controlled target ship . She served in that capacity until 1930 , when she was replaced in that role by . In 1931 , she was sold for scrapping and thereafter dismantled . Design . " North Dakota " was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of . She displaced as designed and up to at full combat load . The ship was powered by two - shaft Curtiss steam turbines and fourteen coal - fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers , generating a top speed of . The ship had a cruising range of at a speed of . She had a crew of 933 officers and men . The ship was armed with a main battery of ten 12 inch / 45 Mark 5 guns in five twin gun turret s on the centerline , two of which were placed in a superfiring pair forward . The other three turrets were placed aft of the superstructure . The secondary battery consisted of twenty - one 5 - inch / 50 guns mounted in casemate s along the side of the hull . As was standard for capital ship s of the period , she carried a pair of torpedo tube s , submerged in her hull on the broadside . The main armored belt was thick , while the armored deck was thick . The gun turrets had thick faces and the conning tower had thick sides . Service history . " North Dakota " was laid down at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy , Massachusetts on 16 December 1907 . She was launched on 10 November 1909 , and completed on 11 April 1910 . On 8 September 1910 , the ship suffered an oil - tank explosion and fire while at sea . Six men — Chief Watertender s August Holtz and Patrick Reid , Chief Machinist ' s Mate s Thomas Stanton and Karl Westa , Machinist ' s Mate First Class Charles C . Roberts , and Watertender Harry Lipscomb — each received the Medal of Honor " for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession " during the fire . After her commissioning , " North Dakota " was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet ; she participated in the normal peacetime routine of training cruises , fleet maneuvers , and gunnery drills in the Atlantic and in the Caribbean Sea . On 2 November 1910 , she crossed the Atlantic for the first time , on a good - will visit to Britain and France . Fleet maneuvers followed in the Caribbean the next spring . Midshipmen training cruises for cadets from the Naval Academy occupied " North Dakota " s time in the summers of 1912 and 1913 . On 1 January 1913 , she joined the honor escort for the British armored cruiser , which was carrying the remains of Whitelaw Reid , the United States Ambassador to Great Britain . The United States remained neutral when war in Europe broke out in August 1914 ; in the Americas , political disturbances in Mexico during that country ' s revolution kept the US Navy occupied that year . " North Dakota " steamed off Veracruz , where she arrived on 26 April 1914 , five days after American sailors had occupied the city . She cruised the coast of Mexico to protect Americans in the country until October , when she returned to Norfolk , Virginia , arriving on 16 October . As war loomed , the Atlantic Fleet began intensive training to prepare for a possible American entrance into the conflict . " North Dakota " was conducting gunnery training in Chesapeake Bay when the United States declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917 . Unlike her sister , " North Dakota " remained in American waters for the duration of the war , and did not see action . She was based out of York River , Virginia and New York City , and was tasked with training gunners and engine room personnel for the rapidly expanding wartime fleet . Admiral Hugh Rodman requested that " North Dakota " remain behind because he did not trust the reliability of her engines . In 1917 , her engines were replaced with new geared turbine s , and new fire control equipment was installed . On 13 November 1919 , " North Dakota " left Norfolk , carrying the remains of the Italian Ambassador to the United States . The ship stopped in Athens , Constantinople , Valencia , and Gibraltar while cruising the Mediterranean Sea . She thereafter returned to the United States , and participated in fleet maneuvers in the Caribbean in the spring of 1920 . In July 1921 , she was present during the joint Army - Navy bombing tests , where the ex - German battleship and cruiser were sunk in an air - power demonstration . " North Dakota " returned to the normal peacetime routine of training exercises , including two midshipmen cruises in the summers of 1922 and 1923 ; the latter cruise went to European waters , where she visited Spain , Scotland , and Scandinavia . In the years immediately following the end of the 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 , " North Dakota " and her sister " Delaware " were to be scrapped as soon as the new battleships and , then under construction , were ready to join the fleet . " North Dakota " was decommissioned on 22 November 1923 in Norfolk in accordance with the terms of the treaty . She was disarmed and reclassified as an " unclassified " ship on 29 May 1924 , and thereafter converted into a radio - controlled gunnery target ship . Her turbines were removed for later use aboard the battleship when she was modernized in the 1930s . She served in that capacity until 1930 , when she was replaced by the battleship . She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 7 January 1931 and subsequently sold to the Union Shipbuilding Co of Baltimore on 16 March 1931 for dismantling . Notes . Footnotes Citations References . Online sources