Pennsylvania and her sister ship Arizona were the first warships to exceed the 30,900 tons of the Japanese Fuso class battleships. With the US Navy’s flagship Pennsylvania having been fitted with oil fueled steam turbines, she missed joining the British Fleet in 1918 as America only wanted to send their older coal fuelled warships. On the morning of December 7th 1941, she was being repaired in dry-dock at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese aircraft attacked. Of the eight battleships at Pearl Harbor, only Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Maryland escaped with minor damage. The other ship of this class Arizona was sunk with the loss of 1,117 lives.

All but three ships damaged at Pearl Harbor were raised and repaired in time to take part in the war against Japan. The three that could not be salvaged were Arizona, Oklahoma and Utah. Following the completion of Pennsylvania’s repairs and modernization, she began trials for the war against Japan early in 1942. By May 1943, she had entered the war zone to support troop landings at the Aleutians and Gilbert Islands. From early 1944 until the end of the war, she took part in battles at the Marshall Islands, Guadalcanal, Marianas, Guam, Philippians, and in the South China Seas. Pennsylvania was credited with being the most active battleship of the US Navy during World War Two. Her demise came in 1946 after being used in atom bomb tests at Bikini Atoll/South Pacific. As she survived two such tests, the US Navy scuttled her off the Island of Ofkwajalein.