USS Utah (BB-31)

On this day, 74 years ago, Japanese carrier bombers attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War Two.

The USS Utah was a Florida class dreadnought battleship built in 1909 and commissioned in 1911. Utah and her sister Florida were the first ships to occupy Veracruz during the US intervention in the Mexican Revolution in 1914. When the US entered World War One in 1917, Utah became the flagship of battleship division 6 (BatDiv 6) where she covered convoys from German attack. Utah Escorted Woodrow Wilson to the Paris peace talks in 1918, and was the flagship of american ships in europe until 1922. In 1925, Utah was modernised and soon after converted into a target ship. In 1935 she was converted again to an AA gun training ship, based in the naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

On December 7th, 1941, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, Utah was berthed at Ford Island. Japanese bomber pilots had been told to not waste bombs on her, as she was an obsolete training ship. Nonetheless, she was hit with several and sunk, killing 64.

After the battleship Oklahoma was raised, an attempt to raise Utah was made as well. She did not grip the bottom and as such was not righted. The recovery was abandoned, partially due to the fact that Utah had no military value at the time she was sunk, as a training ship.

In 1974, a memorial was placed on ford island, near the wreck. Utah still sits in the position she was when the righting was attempted.