When you hear the name USS North Carolina, chances are you picture the battleship that now sits across the Cape Fear River from downtown Wilmington.
But before BB-55, there was another battleship named North Carolina. This one never made it to sea.
On January 12, 1920, workers at the Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, laid the keel for North Carolina (BB-52), one of six planned South Dakota-class battleships. At 43,200 tons, the new ships represented an ambitious step forward for the U.S. Navy. The class was designed to be larger than its immediate predecessors, heavily armored and armed with twelve 16-inch guns. The six planned ships were South Dakota (BB-49), Indiana (BB-50), Montana (BB-51), North Carolina (BB-52), Iowa (BB-53) and Massachusetts (BB-54). All six began construction in 1920 or 1921. None would ever be completed.
A Battleship Takes Shape
For more than two years, North Carolina slowly took shape on the building ways at Norfolk.
Photographs from the period give us a rare look inside a battleship while it was still becoming one. Instead of the familiar decks, guns and towering superstructure of a completed warship, we see an enormous framework of steel. Workers appear tiny inside the growing hull.
There was every expectation that the ship would eventually leave the yard and join the fleet. Then international politics changed her future.
An Effort to Stop an Arms Race
World War I had ended only a few years earlier, and several of the world’s major powers were building increasingly large and powerful warships. At the same time, governments were confronting the enormous financial cost of maintaining and expanding their fleets.
In 1921, representatives from nine nations gathered in Washington, D.C., for the Washington Naval Conference. Among the major goals was an effort to reduce naval armaments and prevent another expensive competition to build ever-larger fleets. The resulting Five-Power Treaty was signed by the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy on February 6, 1922. It established limits on capital-ship tonnage and called for the cancellation or disposal of a number of existing and planned warships. North Carolina was caught right in the middle of that change. Just two days after the treaty was signed, construction on BB-52 was suspended.
The End of BB-52
The pause became permanent. North Carolina would never be launched, commissioned or sent to sea. By the time construction stopped, the unfinished battleship was about 36.7 percent complete.
She was not alone. Construction on all six South Dakota-class battleships was cancelled as a result of the new naval limitations. By late 1923, the unfinished ships were being sold for scrap. North Carolina was sold in October 1923 and removed from the Navy List that November. Instead of sliding down the ways into the water, she was dismantled on the same shipbuilding ways where workers had spent years building her. It is a strange ending for a battleship: built more than a third of the way, then taken apart without ever touching the sea.
But the Name NORTH CAROLINA Wasn’t Finished
BB-52 disappeared, but the name did not.
Years later, the Navy would assign North Carolina to another new battleship: BB-55. That ship would be completed, commissioned in 1941, serve during World War II, become the most decorated Battleship of that
war, and eventually come to Wilmington as North Carolina’s memorial to its Immortal 11,000.
Today, BB-52 survives mostly in plans, models, records and a small number of photographs from her brief construction. Those images show a USS North Carolina very different from the one visitors know today. They capture a ship frozen somewhere between an idea and a finished battleship, and a moment when decisions made around a negotiating table in Washington changed what would happen on shipbuilding ways hundreds of miles away.
BB-52 never fired her guns. She never carried a crew into service. She never even made it into the water. But she still holds her place in the history of the name North Carolina.
And she gives us one of naval history’s best “wait…there was another one?” stories.
The bow of USS NORTH CAROLINA (BB-52) takes shape on the building ways at the Norfolk Navy Yard. Construction would be suspended in February 1922 before the battleship could be completed or launched.
A large gun barbette takes shape aboard USS NORTH CAROLINA (BB-52) at the Norfolk Navy Yard in September 1921. The barbette would have supported and protected machinery for one of the battleship’s main gun turrets.
Looking forward through the unfinished USS NORTH CAROLINA (BB-52) during construction at the Norfolk Navy Yard. The exposed framing offers a rare view inside a battleship while its hull was still taking shape.
A view looking aft aboard USS NORTH CAROLINA (BB-52) during construction at the Norfolk Navy Yard in June 1921. The large circular structure at left is part of the ship’s developing heavy-gun installation.
Looking aft from amidships aboard the unfinished USS NORTH CAROLINA (BB-52) at the Norfolk Navy Yard in June 1921. Workers, exposed deck plating, and the shipyard’s massive overhead structures illustrate the scale of the construction project.
An artist’s rendering shows how a completed South Dakota-class battleship might have appeared at sea. None of the six ships in the class, including NORTH CAROLINA (BB-52), was completed.
An official U.S. Navy model, circa 1920, shows the planned appearance of the South Dakota-class battleships. USS NORTH CAROLINA (BB-52) was one of six ships planned for the class.