Construction began on the first turboelectric-driven battleship, the USS New Mexico (nicknamed "The Queen"), in October of 1915 at the New York Navy Yard. The ship was christened the USS New Mexico by Margaret C. de Baca on April 23, 1917, and placed into commission by the US Navy on May 20, 1918, just before the fall of Germany in World War One. Assigned to the west coast in 1919, the New Mexico became the first flagship of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and was stationed in San Pedro, California.
In 1941 the USS New Mexico returned to the east coast to patrol shipping lanes in the Atlantic during World War Two. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the ship journeyed to San Francisco, was conditioned for war, and sailed for Hawaii. There, she participated in the Pacific and Northern Pacific theaters, including the battles in the Aleutian Islands.
After a short stint in the South Pacific, the USS New Mexico went to the Marshall Islands in 1944, where she suffered her first casualty of war when one of her Kingfisher scouting planes went down. In 1944, she participated in the reconquest of Guam, and in 1945, the invasion of Luzon. There, she was attacked by Kamikaze bombers, and was hit by a plane that killed her commanding officer and 29 others. After being repaired and returned to combat, she was again struck by a Kamikaze attack. Following the atomic bomb attack on Japan, the ship joined Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet, and sailed into Tokyo Bay on August 30th to participate in the surrender of Japan
The battleship USS New Mexico was decommissioned July 19, 1946, stricken from the US Naval Registry, and allocated to the auction block on February 25, 1947. In her career, the USS New Mexico earned six battle stars on the Asiatic-Pacific Area Service Ribbon, and also earned the Navy Occupation Service Medal (Pacific) for the period of September 2-11, 1945.
From the guide to the The USS New Mexico Collection (Hutcheson), 1915-1989, (The New Mexico History Museum, Fray Angélico Chávez History Library)
