August 1995 Blazer

The U.S.S. Utah was state of the art shipbuilding in 1909

4 THE HISTORY BLAZER A'EMTS OF UTAH'S PAST FROM THE Utah State Historical Societ~ 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City. LT 84101 ( 801) 533- 3500 FAX ( 801) 533- 3303 The U. S. S. Utah Was State of the Art Shipbuilding in 1909 Tm JAPANESE ATTACK ON PEARL- OR . ON- D ECEMBER 7,- 1 94I *,- crippled the U. s . , Pacific Fleet. AU eight of its battleships, considered the heart of the fleet, were sunk or sevemly damaged. The U. S. S. Utah, outfitted as a target and anti- aircraft training vessel, was among the hardest hit. Battleships- large, heavily armed and armored gunships- had long been the centerpiece of every industrhlhd nation's fleet. U. S. Navy Captain Alfred T. Mahan had promoted the utility of the& vessels in his influential writings of the 1890s. While other nations built large ships, the British, the world's leading sea power, carried the battleship principle the farthest. In 1905 Britain launched the H. M. S. Dreadnought, the most powerful warship afloat, with batteries of 12- inch guns, annor plating, and powerful engines. The Dreadnought made all existing vessels obsolete, ,,'- and other nations ~ s h e dto construct their own. The United States built two ' superdreadnoughts," including the U. S. S. Utuh, launched on December 23, 1909. The Utuh boasted ten 12- inch guns in its main battery, along with 5- inch guns, anti- aircraft guns, and torpedo tubes. At the time of its launching the Utuh and its sister ship ship, the Flmiido, may have been the most powerful ships afloat. GOV. William Spry's 18- year- old daughter Mary Alice christened the ship. Almost immediately the Utuh encountered stormy seas. The ship's launching created controversy back in Utah when an anti- Mormon faction claimed that Sen. Reed Smoot had arranged the December 23 launching date to coincide with the 104th anniversary of Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith's birth. Governor Spry called the claim ' all bosh" and turned his attention to a naval tradition he planned to honor- providing an elegant silver service for the state' s namesake battleship. The Gorham company of New York won the contract for the 102- piece set. Its design chronicled ' important places, people, and natural descriptions of Utah, " such as the Bingharn copper mine, Devil's Slide, and the Wasatch Mountains. When the set was displayed in public in September 1910, however, it was the coffee server tray with its depiction of the Brigham Young Monument and the Salt Lake Temple in the background that led Ema Von R. Owen, a relative newcomer to the state, to cry foul; it was all part of a Mormon plot. Owen went so far as to obtain a hearing before the House Committee on Naval Affairs in May 191 1 where much of the anti- Mormon rhetoric of the late 19th century surfaced again. State officials defended the design and said no changes in the service could or would be made. Copper king Daniel C. Jackling, the non- Mormon chair of the silver service committee, called Owen's testimony about the committee and ( m0- W the design ' false in all essential particulars." For most people that ended the controversy. The silver service was presented to the ship at elaborate ceremonies on November 6, $ 911. Unwilling to accept defeat, Owen settled for anticlimax, presenting on the following day an alternate coffee tray. It ended up in ' a w e on the bulkhead of the captain's cabin." Over the years the Utah filled a variety of assignments, including helping to land forces at Veracruz, Mexico, in 1914. During World War I the ship helped bottle up the German fleet in port, and its only real action was a single encounter with a U- Boat. After the German surrender American diplomats moved to dismantle the world's fleets in a series of disarmament treaties. The Utah was stripped of its guns and eventually recommissioned as a mobile target ship. In this capacity the battleship, overlaid with a concrete- filled patchwork that indicated ' hits," served as a remotecontrolled target for carrier- and land- based aircraft. In 1935 the U ' was additionally designated as a Fleet Machine Gun School for anti- aircraft training. On December 7, 1941, the U ' was moored on the northwest side of Ford Island, across from Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor. The ship; equipped with sophisticated anti- aircraft weapons, was manned by a crew of 519. The fourth group of Japanese torpedo bombers appeared to concentrate on the Utah, and the vessel was hit twice by torpedoes, capsizing and sinking within 12 minutes. Fifty- two enlisted men and six officers were killed in the attack, including Chief Petty Officer Peter Tomich, who was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for remaining at his engineering post until potentially explosive boilers were safely secured. Much of the useful material was salvaged from the Utah, but its rusty hull remains on the bottom of Pearl Harbor, apparently housing some 54 crewmen. An official memorial for the Pearl Harbor dead was established upon the wreck of the U. S. S. An'zona, which suffered 1,102 crew killed. The Utoh is memorialized by a plaque on Ford Island. Sowces: Robert Anthony Sumbot, " The Utah Fleet: A History of Ships in the United States Navy that Bore Utah Place Names and Personality Names" ( M. S. thesis, Utah State University, 1966); Michael S. Eldredge, " Silver Service for the Battleship Utah: A Naval Tradition under Governor Spry," Utah Historial Quarterly 46 ( 1978). THE HISTORY BUZER is prod& by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant h m the Utab Statehood Centaria1 Commission. For more information about the Historid Society telephone [phone] ( JN)