USS Ohio (BB 12)
USS Ohio, a 12,500-ton Maine class battleship, was built at at San Francisco, California. She was commissioned in October 1904 and served along the West Coast until April 1905, when she steamed across the Pacific to become flagship of the Asiatic Fleet. She returned to the United States in 1907 and, late in that year, began an epic cruise around the World with other battleships of the "Great White Fleet". After the this voyage ended in February 1909, Ohio was modernized, trading her white and buff color scheme for a drab, but more practical, grey and receiving the first of what ultimately would be two "basket masts". She thereafter was primarily stationed in the Atlantic, where she served with combat forces and on training duty. In 1914, the battleship participated in the occupation of Vera Cruz, Mexico, and the next year transited the Panama Canal to visit the Pacific Coast.
After the United States entered World War I in 1917, Ohio was employed as a training ship, based at Norfolk, Virginia. Soon after the conflict's end she briefly served as a troop transport, then was in reserve status at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Classified BB-12 in mid-1920, in September of that year she was involved in salvage attempts on the sunken submarine S-5. USS Ohio was decommissioned at the end of May 1922 and sold for scrapping in March 1923.
