USS Utah BB 31.

USS Utah (BB-31) after entering Dry Dock No. 4 at Brooklyn Navy Yard, 9 May 1912. She was the first vessel to use the dry dock, which took roughly four times longer to build than the battleship; Utah, freshly commissioned at the end of August 1911, returned to New York for refit after shakedown and fleet exercises. Some 30 years later, the venerable dreadnought would be mistaken for an active battleship and torpedoed at the very beginning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; in this way, the veteran of The Great War and Veracruz met her end at the hands of an enemy in her first real encounter with one - but as a target ship and gunnery trainer, rather than the battleship she was built to be. Utah is often overlooked as not being one of the battleships lost on 7 December 1941, which is correct in terms of her classification at the time, but the fact remains that she was an American dreadnought by design and career.

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It is important to note that Utah’s demise was the result of Japanese excitement at seeing a low, stout battleship silhouette topped with the trademark American cage mast. Utah’s presence was known to the attack planners, and the flight leaders tried to prevent their pilots from wasting torpedoes on the old training ship. She bore no resemblance to a carrier, and thus was not mistaken for one just because she was in the carrier berths at Ford Island; Utah’s appearance, sans 12” guns, was still unmistakably that of a battleship, particularly to crack aviators trained in low-level attack on ship targets.

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Utah, after absorbing a pair of torpedo hits, rolled over in about 10 minutes, ultimately taking 58 men our her complement of 519 with her. Four men even escaped through a hole cut in her hull after she capsized. Though Utah was deemed to be of minimal military value, leading to the abandonment of her salvage after initial righting efforts failed, Utah was hailed as one of the most useful ships in the fleet prior to the attack. She could train gunners, and with the aid of heavy timbers and gun covers, could serve as a mobile target during exercises. She was also a useful post for new sailors due to her size.