“Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan,” words famously spoken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he addressed a joint session of Congress. He finished his speech with a request for Congress to make a formal declaration of war against Japan, thus entering the United States into World War II.

Though devastating as it was, the US Navy only permanently lost 2 battleships in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the USS Arizona and USS Utah. Both ships remain where they sank as memorials to the souls who lost their lives that day and remain entombed. The USS Oklahoma was sunk, refloated, but the damage was too extensive to repair. Parts of her superstructure were salvaged and repurposed. Ultimately the remaining hull sank while being towed to a salvage yard. All the other damaged ships were refloated and repaired, many within 6 months. This is because the Japanese failed to bomb the nearby repair facilities and dry docks.

But there were five other battleships at Pearl Harbor that day that returned to service: West Virginia, Pennsylvania, California, Tennessee, and Maryland. Each has its own story, but the stories are similar. By the end of that same December, these World War I era ships had been refloated, repaired and had steamed to West Coast shipyards for extensive repair, refitting, and upgrade. The USS Tennessee (commissioned on 3 June 1920) was repaired and at the end of February 1942, Tennessee departed Puget Sound with Maryland and Colorado. Upon arriving at San Francisco, she began a period of intensive training operations with Rear Admiral William S. Pye’s Task Force 1, made up of the Pacific Fleet’s available battleships and a screen of destroyers.

However, Tennessee’s  role in the war was not to be in the line of battle for which she had trained for two decades. Most of the great battles of the conflict were not conventional surface-ship actions, but long-range duels between fast carrier striking forces. Fleet carriers, with their screening cruisers and destroyers, could maintain relatively high force speeds; and a new generation of fast battleships: beginning with the North Carolina (BB-55)-class and continuing into the South Dakota (BB-57)- and Iowa (BB-61)-classes, were coming into the fleet and were to prove their worth in action with the fast carrier force. But the older battleships,Tennessee and her kin, simply could not keep up with the carriers. Thus, while the air groups dueled for the approaches to Port Moresby and the Japanese naval offensive reached its zenith in the waters west of Midway, the battleship force found itself steaming restlessly on the sidelines.

After a period of training and escorting aircraft carriers in transit from California to Hawaii, Tennessee returned to Puget Sound on the 27th for modernization. New broadside design reshaped her profile, but offered vastly improved protection against torpedo attacks. The superstructure was replaced in its entirety in order to support the new offensive weapons and their operation. While the traditional 14-inch guns remained, the ship was now equipped with a new array of 5-inch anti-ship weapons and 20 mm anti-aircraft weapons – all connected to new radar systems and fire control stations.

Leaving the shipyard again in May 1943, though still a slow battleship unable to support carrier strike forces, her heavy turret guns could still hit as hard as ever. Naval shore bombardment and gunfire support for troops ashore, then coming to be a specialty in its own right, was well suited for this the earlier generation of battleships which were also still quite usable for patrol duty in areas where firepower was more important than speed. The refurbished Tennessee’s first tour of duty combined both of these missions.

Tennessee first saw action in the Aleutian Islands, helping to dislodge an occupying Japanese force. Afterwards she supported the invasion of the Gilbert Islands, the recapture of Kwajalein and nearby islands in the Marshalls chain. Other shore bombardment campaigns include Eniwetok atoll; Bismarck Archipelago; extensive operations supporting the capture of Guam, Tinian and Saipan in the Mariannas campaign; and other smaller campaigns in the island-hopping strategy leading to the retaking of the Philippines.

Tennessee was involved in the last great surface ship v. surface ship action in modern naval warfare: the encounter at Surigao Strait during the Battle for Leyte Gulf. A search of the internet will provide more than enough information on this famous battle that effectively ended the Japanese Navy as a threat in the Pacific Campaign.

Tennessee was involved in the bombardment of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, afterwards she patrolled the South China Sea until V-J Day in 1945. Afterwards Tennessee continued her long voyage home by way of the Cape of Good Hope.

On the fourth anniversary of Pearl Harbor, she moored at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. During those years, she had hurled 9,347 14-inch rounds at the enemy, with 46,341 shells from her 5-inch guns and more than 100,000 rounds from her anti-aircraft battery.

The process of trimming the wartime Navy down to postwar size was already well underway. Tennessee was one of the older, yet still useful, ships selected for inclusion in the “mothball fleet;” and, during 1946, she underwent a process of preservation and preparation for inactivation. The work went slowly; there were many ships to lay up and not too many people to do it. Finally, on 14 February 1947, after 27 years of service, Tennessee’s ensign was hauled down for the last time as she was placed out of commission.

Such is one of the many stories that unfolded after Pearl Harbor.