Tag Archives: USS Delaware (BB-28)

Mighty D Rejoins the Fleet, after a 97-year hiatus

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To comply with the limits imposed under the Five-Power Washington Naval Treaty, the low-mileage 22,000-ton early 12-inch-gunned dreadnought USS Delaware (Battleship No. 28), was decommissioned 10 November 1923 and promptly sold for scrap, just 13 years after she joined the fleet. Her crew was hot-transferred to the brand-new 33,000-ton/16-inch-gunned super-dreadnought, USS Colorado (BB-45).

Ex-USS Delaware (BB-28) in dry dock at the South Boston Annex, Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts, on 30 January 1924. The ship has been stripped in preparation for scrapping. Note propellers, rudder, armor belt and heavy fouling on her underwater hull. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 54675

Fast forward nearly a full century and the Navy has a new Delaware for the first time since that dark winter of 1923/24.

The U.S. Navy commissioned USS Delaware (SSN 791), the 18th Virginia-class attack submarine, on Saturday, in a low-key ceremony due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She is the 7th Delaware in the Navy’s history.

190830-N-N0101-155 ATLANTIC OCEAN (Aug. 30, 2019) The Virginia-class attack submarine USS Delaware (SSN 791) transits the Atlantic Ocean after departing Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding division during sea trials in August 2019. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of HII by Ashley Cowan/Released)

Young battlewagons at play

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Here we see, on the cusp of the Great War, a most excellent color-tinted postcard published by the Valentine Souvenir Co., New York from a photograph by Enrique Muller, showing brand-new early dreadnoughts of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet steaming in line ahead, circa summer, 1914.

The card came from the collection of Valentine cards amassed by CDR Donald J. Robinson, USN (Ret), in 1983. Catalog #: NH 101221-KN

The NHHC has identified these as USS North Dakota (BB-29) and her only sister, USS Delaware (BB-28), astern. The two-ship Delaware-class were only 518-feet oal and some 22,000-tons but mounted a full battery of ten 12″/45 caliber Mark 5 guns in five double turrets, which are seen in the above image. The 12″/45 armed a total of 14 battlewagons, and as such was the most prolific main gun in American battleship history.

Sadly, victims of the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922, both the Delawares (as well as just about every other ship carrying the 12″/45) were broken up soon after as a general, yet ephemeral, sense of lasting peace had broken out. The mighty warships were less than 13 years old when they went to the breakers.