USS Florida ( BB - 30 ) USS " Florida " ( BB - 30 ) was the lead ship of the of dreadnought battleship s of the United States Navy . She had one sister ship , . " Florida " was laid down at the New York Navy Yard in March 1909 , launched in May 1910 , and commissioned into the US Navy in September 1911 . She was armed with a main battery of ten guns and was very similar in design to the preceding s . " Florida " was one of the first ships to arrive during the United States occupation of Veracruz in early 1914 , and part of her crew joined the landing party that occupied the city . She was assigned to United States Battleship Division 9 after the American entrance into World War I in April 1917 ; the division was sent to Europe to reinforce the British Grand Fleet . During the war , " Florida " and the rest of her unit , reassigned as the 6th Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet , conducted patrols in the North Sea and escorted convoys to Norway . She saw no action with the German High Seas Fleet , however . " Florida " returned to normal peacetime duties in 1919 . She was heavily modernized in 1924 – 1926 , including a complete overhaul of her propulsion system . She remained in service until 1930 , when the London Naval Treaty was signed . Under the terms of the treaty , " Florida " and " Utah " were removed from active service . Therefore , " Florida " was decommissioned in 1931 and scrapped the next year in Philadelphia . Design . " Florida " 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 four - shaft Parsons steam turbines rated at and twelve 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 1 , 001 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 sixteen 5 - inch / 51 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 . " Florida " was laid down at the New York Navy Yard on 9 March 1909 . She was launched on 12 May 1910 , and commissioned into the US Navy on 15 September 1911 . She spent the next several months on training cruises in the Caribbean and off Maine , after which she moved to Hampton Roads to join the Atlantic Fleet . She arrived on 29 March 1912 , and was made the flagship of the 1st Battleship Division ( BatDiv ) . For the next two years , she participated in the normal routine of peacetime exercises with her division and squadron and with the entire Atlantic Fleet . She also conducted extensive gunnery training and took cadets from the Naval Academy on midshipman training cruises . In early 1914 during the Mexican Revolution , the United States intervened in the fighting and occupied Veracruz . " Florida " and her sister were the first capital ships to arrive in Veracruz , on 16 February . Both ships landed a contingent of a thousand marines and bluejackets to begin the occupation of the city on 21 April . Over the next three days , the marines battled rebels in the city and suffered ninety - four casualties , while killing hundreds of Mexicans in return . Fourteen men from " Florida " s crew won the Medal of Honor for their actions during the battle . In July , " Florida " departed Mexican waters to return to normal fleet operations , and in October , she was reassigned to the 2nd Battleship Division . World War I . On 6 April 1917 , the United States declared war on Germany over its unrestricted submarine warfare campaign . " Florida " participated in wartime readiness exercises in 1917 , before steaming across the Atlantic with Battleship Division 9 . The division , which consisted of " Florida " , , , and , left the United States on 25 November . The division was sent to European waters to reinforce the British Grand Fleet in the North Sea . After arriving in Scapa Flow , Battleship Division 9 became the 6th Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet . Starting in late 1917 , the Germans had begun to use surface raiders to attack the British convoys to Scandinavia ; this forced the British to send squadrons from the Grand Fleet to escort the convoys . On 6 February 1918 , the 6th Battle Squadron and eight British destroyer s escorted a convoy of merchant ships to Norway . While on the operation , " Florida " s lookouts reported spotting a U - boat , though the commander of " Wyoming " later argued that this and others issued by the rest of the squadron were false reports . The squadron was back in Scapa Flow on 10 February ; " Delaware " escorted two more such convoys in March and April . During the March convoy , " Florida " , " Wyoming " , , and four destroyers became separated from the convoy in heavy fog , and only relocated it the following morning when the fog had lifted . The squadron returned to Scapa Flow on 13 March . On 22 – 24 April , the German High Seas Fleet sortied to intercept one of the convoys in the hope of cutting off and destroying the escorting battleship squadron . " Florida " and the rest of the Grand Fleet left Scapa Flow on 24 April in an attempt to intercept the Germans , but the High Seas Fleet had already broken off the operation and was on its way back to port . On 30 June , the 6th Squadron was cruising in the North Sea in support of a mine - laying operation ; while on patrol , " Florida " and several other ships fired on what they incorrectly believed to be U - boat wakes . By early November , the Spanish Flu pandemic had spread to the Grand Fleet ; " Florida " was the only ship of the American contingent not to be quarantined for the virus . On 20 November , " Florida " and the rest of the Grand Fleet rendezvoused with the High Seas Fleet , which was then interned in Scapa Flow , following the Armistice with Germany that ended the war . Shortly thereafter , " Florida " was replaced with the newly commissioned . " Florida " was not in the United States for long ; on 12 December , she again departed for European waters , this time in company with the passenger ship . The steamer was carrying President Woodrow Wilson on his way to France to participate in the peace negotiations . The ships arrived in Brest , France on 13 December , after which " Florida " returned to the United States . She was present during the Victory Naval Review in the North River in New York City at the end of December . Inter - War Period . " Florida " returned to normal peacetime duties in January 1919 , when she arrived in Norfolk on the 4th . She steamed to the Azores to take weather observations for Navy seaplane s that were to make the first aerial crossing the Atlantic . In August 1920 , " Florida " was present during the 300th anniversary of the Pilgrims ' landing at Provincetown , Massachusetts . In December 1920 , she made a good - will cruise to South America with Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby aboard and over the next three years conducted amphibious operation training with the Marine Corps in the Caribbean . " Florida " also participated in the normal routine of exercises and midshipman cruises . During this period , she was made the flagship of the Commander , Control Force , US Fleet . In early 1924 , " Florida " took part in the Fleet Problem III maneuvers , where she and her sister " Utah " acted as stand - ins for the new s . In June 1924 , " Florida " was taken out of service for a modernization at the Boston Navy Yard , which lasted from 1 April 1925 to 1 November 1926 . During the reconstruction , her deck armor was strengthened and anti - torpedo blisters were installed to increase her resistance to underwater damage . Her secondary battery was rearranged to improve its efficiency , and four of her 5 - inch guns , which were mounted in sponsons , were removed . She was also reboilered with four White - Forster oil - fired models that had been removed from the battleships and battlecruiser s scrapped as a result of the Washington Naval Treaty . Her Parsons turbines were replaced with new Curtis geared turbine s and her two funnels were trunked into one stack . The rear lattice mast was replaced with a pole mast , which was moved further aft . Her two submerged torpedo tubes were also removed . " Florida " remained in service for a few years in her modernized form , and participated in joint Army - Navy coast defense exercises in June 1928 . Under the terms of the London Naval Treaty of 1930 , which reduced the battle fleets of the signatory countries , she was to be disposed , along with her sister " Utah " and either or . She was accordingly decommissioned on 16 February 1931 at the Philadelphia Naval Yard , and was broken up in Philadelphia later that year . The ship ' s bell was saved and transported to the University of Florida in Gainesville , where it was installed behind the stands in the north end zone of newly built Florida Field . For decades , it was traditionally rung by fans leaving the stadium at the conclusion of a victory by the Florida Gator football team . As the stadium underwent successive expansions and renovations , the bell was moved in 1991 and then removed from the stadium in 2003 . Notes . Footnotes Citations References . Online sources