In 1919 a decommissioned battleship best known for firing the first shot in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba more than 20 years prior was given the opportunity for a second life. The ex-battleship Iowa (BB-4), whose design quickly fell out of fashion in the first quarter of the 20th century, was the first U.S. Navy ship to be converted into a radio-controlled target ship after World War I. Without a single person on board, she was now tasked to outmaneuver bomb-dropping American pilots.

In mid-1919, the Iowa, renamed Coast Battleship No. 4 that April, was sent to the Philadelphia Navy Yard where all of her guns were removed, remote-control equipment was installed, and her boilers were fitted to burn oil. Many of her compartments were sealed to ensure watertight integrity, and automatic pumps were put in to control water that might pour in when she was struck by gunfire or aerial bombs.1

In her new guise, the Iowa ran trials off the Chesapeake Bay in October 1920 with the old battleship Ohio (BB-12) serving as control ship. After getting under way and sailing to the operations area, her crew left in boats. An officer on board the Ohio was put in charge of maneuvering the remote-control target. He could steer the ship to port or starboard or set the ship’s gyrocompass to maintain a steady course by sending radio signals to the receiver on board the Iowa that was connected to the remote-control gear used to control her steaming and maneuvering. If he wanted to stop the ship, he could send a long signal to activate a special relay that opened the circuit on an electrically controlled pneumatic valve, shutting off the various fuel-oil and feed water pumps.2

The following year the Iowa joined a fleet of ex-German ships assembled to take part in an extensive series of bombing tests conducted off the Virginia Capes. The former battleship was sent to sea on 29 June 1921 to serve as the target ship in an experiment designed to test whether or not U.S. Navy planes—equipped with a full load of fuel and weapons—cold locate and bomb her before she got within gun range of the coast. The patrol planes, Curtiss F-5L flying boats, had to first locate the Iowa, which was steaming in company with and under radio control of the Ohio somewhere between Cape Hatteras and Cape Henlopen, 50 to 100 miles offshore. Because of the long flight over water required to reach the target, Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell, in command of the Army air units involved in the tests, declined to permit his planes to take part in the search and attack, but allowed a few Army blimps to participate in the search.3

The exercise to seek out and bomb the Iowa began at 0800 when 13 Navy flying boats and three Army blimps took off from temporary bases that had been established at Cape May, Cape Hatteras, and Hampton Roads, then formed scouting lines to search for her. The first aircraft to sight the 6-knot target was Army blimp D-2, which located the remote-control ship at approximately 0957. A second blimp, the D-4, appears to have spotted the Iowa a few minutes later. One or both of these airships attempted to radio the vessel’s position, but was unable to contact the command ship Shawmut (CM-4) or any of the shore stations. The first sighting report received by the Shawmut, which had 20 destroyers strategically stationed nearby to act as rescue ships in the event any of the aircrafts had to ditch, was transmitted from an F-5L piloted by Ensign Edward T. Garvey. Three quarters of an hour later a three-plane division of F-5Ls led by Lieutenant William D. Thomas flying at an altitude of 4,000 feet toggled the first of 85 100-pound sand-filled practice bombs that would be dropped by the 23 Navy and Marine Corps planes that participated in the bombing phase of the exercise.

This phase took three hours and 19 minutes starting from the time Thomas’ division reached the scene and ending when the final salvo of ten 500-pound bombs was released by five Martin bombers flying in formation. But the results fell short of expectations and were disappointing to the spectators—especially the reporters, who had peppered the newspapers with articles proclaiming the demise of the battleship. “Airplanes Fail to ‘Sink’ the Iowa,” The New York Times reported the day after the attack.4

There were many near misses—only two bombs actually struck the target ship—and no big explosions, no sinking, and no crashes. The Times attributed the lack of hits to the remote-control maneuvering of the Iowa, which handicapped the airman, while failing to note that only dummy bombs were dropped. Also missing from the article was the lack of a viable bombsight that could be used against a moving target. The most spectacular feature of the day, according to the Times article, was that the Iowa was controlled wholly by radio. “This was made possible,” wrote the correspondent, “by the development of electrical devices furnished by John Hays Hammond Jr., pioneer in the control of torpedoes and ships by radio.”5

The Iowa’s fame as a remote-control target was short-lived, however. Although she played an important part in bombing trials off the Virginia Capes, her role was soon overshadowed by the dramatic sinking of the ex-German light cruiser Frankfurt and the even more spectacular sinking of the battleship Ostfriesland that took place in July.

After the exercise, the Iowa was reclassified as the experimental radio-controlled target ship IX-6. She did not go to sea again until February 1923, when she went to the Pacific by way of the Panama Canal to serve as a target for the battleship Mississippi (BB-41). The Mississippi, one of three new ships of the New Mexico class armed with longer 14-inch/50-caliber guns in improved triple turrets, had taken the lead in testing new weapons and firing systems that had been installed on these ships. During the first of these gunnery practices, IX-6 was subjected to a bombardment from the Mississippi’s secondary battery of 5-inch guns at ranges greater than 8,000 yards. Two further exercises at longer range placed her on the receiving end of more than 300 14-inch shells. She sank on 22 March 1923 in a much publicized test attended by many members of Congress, numerous other officials, and a number of reporters after being hit by nearly three-dozen of these three-quarter-ton projectiles.6

The Stoddert‘s Radio-Control Career

The Fleet’s need for a remote-control target ship resurfaced in 1930 when high-ranking officers became concerned about dive-bombing and the danger it posed to the Navy’s destroyers. These lightly plated ships were extremely vulnerable to small bombs or machine-gun fire and could easily be disabled by one or two well-placed hits. Those in charge of training wanted a high-speed target that could be used in the Fleet gunnery exercises to accurately determine the effectiveness of the Navy’s aerial tactics.

The Stoddert (DD-302) was subsequently converted by the Mare Island Navy Yard into a radio-controlled target ship for use in realistic high-speed combat exercises. While this was carried out, her name was changed to Light Target Number 1 bearing hull number IX-35. (She was recommissioned on 6 April 1931 but was reclassified as AG-18 under her old name on 30 June 1931. She returned to destroyer status the following year under her original hull number, DD-302.7)

The Stoddert added a new wrinkle to the gunnery exercises conducted off the coast of California that summer. For the first time dive-bombers could practice their attacks on a high-speed maneuvering ship without fear of injuring the ship’s personnel. The old destroyer was guided by radio control (by an officer on the bridge of the destroyer Perry [DD-340] that was steaming in company at a distance), and she executed maneuvers never attempted before with a crewless ship.

The remotely controlled ship responded to instructions entered into a portable control box by punching typewriter-like keys. In response to these signals, the Stoddert could accelerate to top speed and be made to maneuver wildly at 30 knots to attempt to avoid the practice bombs aimed at her. Fitted to the ship’s smokestacks were special metal “hats” designed to prevent a dummy bomb from inadvertently dropping down one of her funnels and damaging a boiler.8

The radio-controlled destroyer proved to be a difficult target for the airmen to hit. Her small size and high degree of maneuverability left little margin of error for the attacking pilots. The Stoddert had another advantage: The officer conning her from the Perry knew exactly when the attack would take place, the direction from whence it would come, and the number of aircraft involved. Since the officer in control had no other mission than to avoid being hit, he was free to maneuver the ship at will.9

Unfortunately the first bombing exercises involving the Stoddert were marred by a tragic accident. On 30 July 1931, pilot Lieutenant Thomas G. Fisher was killed while attempting to drop a water-filled practice bomb in a simulated dive-bombing attack on the moving ship. As he entered the dive, the Stoddert began a high-speed turn to port. Fisher twisted his Boeing F4B with ailerons, trying to keep the Stoddert in his sights, dropped the bomb at release altitude, and pulled back on the stick. The flotation gear under his biplane’s upper wing somehow inflated as he began his pullout, ripping the top wing off. The rest of the airplane plunged to the sea with Fisher still in it.10

Although short-lived as a radio-controlled target—the Stoddert was decommissioned for the last time in January 1933—she paved the way for the Boggs (DD-136), which was also turned into a radio-controlled target ship, bearing hull number AG-19, and the battleship Utah (BB-31), saved from the scrapyard so that she too could be converted into a radio-controlled vessel. The Boggs would serve with Mobile Target Division 1 for almost nine years conducting high-speed tests, sweeping mines, and towing gunnery targets. The Navy also announced plans to equip the Kilty (DD-137) with radio-control gear, but it appears that the Lamberton (DD-119) was selected instead.11

The Utah’s Conversion

After the Navy decided to convert the Utah, which had been condemned under the terms of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, the obsolete battleship was sent to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. In addition to installing the radio-control apparatus, the yard removed her catapult, range clocks, range finders, the top of her forward cage mast, and guns (although her five armored turrets were left in place). After having been decommissioned for the duration of the conversion, the Utah, redesignated AG-16, was recommissioned at Norfolk, Virginia, on 1 April 1932.12

The ship departed Norfolk on 7 April for a 14-day cruise in local waters to train her engineers on using the new radio-control gear. By the beginning of June she was conducting four-hour trial runs. No piece of machinery was touched by human hands, although observers were stationed at critical engineering stations for safety and to record data.

After completing her trials and finishing tests of her new gear, the Utah sailed for the Pacific via the Panama Canal, reaching San Pedro, California, on 30 June, where she reported for duty with Training Squadron 1, Base Force, U.S. Fleet. She conducted her first target practice with cruisers on 25 July. This was followed on 2 August by rehearsal runs for the Nevada (BB-36) with control parties stationed on the destroyers Hovey (DD-208) and Talbot (DD-114) to provide remote control. On 25 October 1932, the Utah served as a radio-controlled target for the advanced battle practice conducted by the squadrons assigned to the aircraft carrier Saratoga (CV-3).

In 1933 the Navy began using the former battleship to test the effectiveness of both horizontal bombing and dive-bombing against a maneuver target. Bombing exercises and aerial gunnery practices involving the Utah were subsequently scheduled on a regular basis during the interwar period so that by 1941 the Fleet had nine years of experience in attacking a maneuvering target. The exercises showed that dive-bombing consistently outperformed horizontal bombing by a considerable margin. As the years passed, the altitude for horizontal bombing was gradually increased to lesson the danger from antiaircraft fire, which continued to improve as newer directors and better antiaircraft guns were added to the Fleet. Target maneuvering also became more radical. Both factors contributed to a decrease in horizontal bombing accuracy, despite the fact an improved version of the Norden bombsight had been introduced into the Aircraft Squadrons of the Battle Fleet.13

Besides serving as a realistic target for U.S. carrier planes, the Utah towed targets and took part in annual “Fleet Problems,” once-a-year naval exercises that tested training maneuvers in a mock battle. She also played a pivotal role in the joint coastal-defense exercise conducted in the summer of 1937 in response to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s concern over the effectiveness of the Army Air Corps’ bombers. It was the only time she ever acted as a target for the Army’s planes. The exercise’s objective was to test the Air Corps’ ability to destroy an attacking enemy fleet located by the Navy. Although the original plans called for a radio-controlled destroyer to represent the attacking fleet and be used as the target for the Air Corps bombers, the Joint Planning Committee of the Joint Board recommended that the Utah be substituted for the Navy’s radio-controlled destroyers, none of which had sufficient bunker capacity to meet the exercise’s steaming requirements.14

After consulting with President Roosevelt, Army Chief of Staff General Malin Craig and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William D. Leahy agreed to hold what became known as Joint Coastal Frontier Defense Air Exercise No. 4. It would be conducted 300 miles off the California coast between San Pedro Bay and Hamilton Field during a 24-hour period beginning at noon on 12 August 1937. The target would be the Utah, which was to be attacked by Boeing YB-17s from the 2nd Bombardment Group and Martin B-10s from the 7th and 19th Bombardment Groups using water-filled bombs supplied by the Navy. The Army, which had been using sand-filled, powder-charged bombs for practice on land targets, balked at the use of the Navy bombs. But they were necessary; the 50-bomb bombs would not penetrate the heavy wooden planking that protected the Utah’s steel deck from damage.15

On the day the exercise began, a heavy bank of fog extending 200 miles from the coast covered the sea, hindering the efforts of the Navy patrol planes assigned to find the Utah. Because of the poor weather conditions, they did not find the ship until 1357 when they located her 275 miles southwest of San Francisco, headed northwest at 15 knots. For some reason the sighting report did not reach the Air Corps’ headquarters until 1603, leaving the Army aviators barely enough time to reach the target ship before nightfall. But they could not find the Utah during their brief search and had to return to the base with darkness approaching.16

When the exercise resumed early the next morning, fog delayed the takeoff of the Navy search planes that were supposed to find the Utah before the Army airmen, anxiously awaiting word of her position, could take off. The exercise was scheduled to end at noon, so they would not be able to reach the target if they did not leave soon. At 0900, before any position report had been received, Brigadier General Delos C. Emmons, commanding the Air Corps defenders, ordered the bombers into the air and out to sea to find the Utah. While they were aloft, the lead aircraft in a flight of seven YB-17s (prototypes of B-17 Flying Fortresses) received a scouting report from the Navy indicating the “enemy’s” position and heading. Lieutenant Curtis E. LeMay, lead navigator for the seven YB-17s of the 2nd Bomb Group, quickly plotted an interception course that would put the four-engine bombers over the target.17

LeMay described in his memoirs that he didn’t think they would reach the Utah’s position before the exercise ended at 1200. As the Army planes approached the estimated target area, the flight dropped below the clouds and formed a search line. To LeMay’s great surprise they stumbled upon the Utah despite the fact that they had been given an erroneous position report for the second time in two days. They were heading south, and the Navy had given them the wrong latitude by one degree. If the Navy scouts had erred in the longitude, the Army planes would have never found her.

The bombers located the Utah with just 13 minutes to spare. LeMay’s flight of YB-17s began bombing at 1147 from an altitude of 600 feet. This was “well within gun range” according to the entry made in the Utah’s diary, which would have made the planes subject to heavy antiaircraft fire. As soon as the bombs started falling, the Utah, which was not under radio control, tried to throw off the bombardier’s aim by making radical changes in course, but the YB-17s managed to hit the ship three times. The last bomb was dropped one minute before noon. By then the observers on board the Utah had counted 50 splashes.

That night the Army aviators, chagrined over the erroneous position reporting and unhappy with the weather conditions under which they had to operate, convinced the Navy to allow them another shot at the Utah the next day. This unscheduled bombing practice began at 0940 when a flight of B-10s with unlimited ceiling and visibility found the Utah 55 miles southwest of the Farallon Islands and commenced bombing from 12,000 feet. The effort was scored by the Utah’s crew, who observed hits from gun turrets and other protected spots.

After securing from bombing quarters at 1108, the crew went on deck, having been told that the bombing would not begin again until 1245. But they had to scurry for cover six minutes later; YB-17s had unexpectedly started bombing again. High above, LeMay could see sailors all over the deck through his binoculars. “It was like scratching open an ant-hill with a stick, and seeing the disorganized insects all going every which way. Decks of the ship were just one mad welter of sailors diving for the hatches,” he recounted in his memoirs.18

The crew quickly retreated to their quarters as the ship began making radical maneuvers to throw off the bombardiers’ aim. LeMay alleged that they got a higher percentage of hits than the Navy’s own bombers had from a lower altitude in 1936, but no records of this unscheduled exercise have been located, throwing doubt on his claim.

The Utah continued to serve as a mobile target and antiaircraft training ship until Japan’s 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The surprise strike lasted nearly two hours, but it took only minutes to incapacitate the Utah. At 0801, soon after sailors began to raise the colors at her fantail, she took a torpedo hit forward and immediately started to list to port. She lasted another 11 minutes before rolling over on her beam ends.

In the time between World Wars I and II, the two obsolete battleships and several destroyers converted into radio-controlled target ships extended their service lives while providing valuable service to the U.S. Navy. Equipped with the latest advances in radio control and automation, they were on the cutting edge of technology for their day. Today, the technology first deployed in these revolutionary ships lives on in the highly sophisticated target drones used by the Navy to test new aerial weapons and train its aviators and shipboard weapons crews on the nuances of air defense.

1. “Coast Battleship No. 4 (ex-USS Iowa, Battleship # 4)—As a Target Ship, 1921–1923,” Naval History and Heritage Command website, www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-i/bb4.htm. Iowa BB-4, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Naval History and Heritage Command website, www.history.navy.mil/danfs/i2/iowa-iii.htm.

2. Clifford A. Tinker, “Radio and the Navigator,” The Outlook, 5 July 1922, 417–19. R.S. Griffin, “Radio Ship Control,” Mechanical Engineering, vol. 44 (January–December 1922), 43–44.

3. Alfred W. Johnson, “The Naval Bombing Experiments Off the Virginia Capes: June and July 1921, Their Technological and Psychological Aspects,” including “Minutes of the Pre-Bombing Conference May 10 and May 18, 1921,” Appendix 1, “Bombing Operations,” and “Lessons From the Bombing—A Navy View,” unpublished manuscript, Navy Department Library, Washington, DC.

4. “Airplanes Fail to ‘Sink’ the Iowa,” The New York Times, 30 June 1921.

5. Ibid.

6. “Their Final Service: US Navy Predreadnought Target Ships,” Historic Ships, 8 March 2013, http://historicships.blogspot.com/2013_03_01_archive.html. “Coast Battleship No. 4 (ex-USS Iowa, Battleship # 4)—As a Target Ship, 1921–1923.”

7. USS Stoddert (DD-302), Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

8. “Crewless Boat, Run By Radio, Performs New Feats,” Popular Science Monthly, October 1931, 29. “U.S. Navy Gets Crewless Ghost Fleet for War and Peace,” Popular Science Monthly, February 1932, 24–25, 130. “USS Stoddert (DD-302; later IX-35, AG-18 & DD-302), 1920–1935. Briefly Renamed Light Target Number 1 in 1930–1931,” Naval History and Heritage Command, www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-s/dd302.htm. Note: Depending on the source, the top speed of the Stoddert under radio control was 26 to 34 knots.

9. Thomas Wildenberg, Destined for Glory (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998), 94–95.

10. Joseph J. Clark, Carrier Admiral (New York: David McKay Co., 1967), 46. George Van Deurs, “Navy Wings Between the Wars,” 441, unpublished manuscript (microfilm), Aviation History Branch, Naval History and Heritage Command.

11. USS Boggs (DD-136), Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. “U.S. Navy gets Crewless Ghost Fleet for War and Peace,” 25. “Navy to Make Utah a ‘Robot’ Battleship,” The New York Times, 19 August 1931. Evidence that the Lamperton was converted to a radio-control target ship was confirmed by the ship’s postal cover bearing the cancellation stamp “U.S.S. Lambertion 30 May 1935 A.M. Radio Controlled.” My thanks to Allen Knechtmann of the Naval Heritage and History Command for forwarding this piece of information that confirms the ambiguous date found in the Stoddert entry in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

12. USS Utah (BB-31), Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. R. Allen Crane, The Big U (Bloomington: Author House, 2010), 65.

13. Wildenberg, Destined for Glory, 219–29.

14. Secretary of the Navy to The President, draft attached to Joint Planning Committee to Joint Board, 10 June 1937, Joint Army Navy Board Security Classified Correspondence, 1910–1942, Entry 284, RG 165, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.

15. Joint Board to Secretary of War, 10 July 1937, JB-SC, Entry 284, RG 165, NA-CP. AG to Commanding General AF, 20 July 1937, File AG 1935–42, Frank M. Andrews Papers, Library of Congress.

16. Maurer Maurer, Aviation in the U.S. Army 1919–1939. (Office of Air Force History, 1987), 405–6.

17. Curtis E. LeMay, Mission with LeMay (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 143–49.

18. Ibid., 150. Note: It appears that LeMay, over the passage of time, thought that he had observed the “sailors diving for the hatches,” on Friday, when it appears that happened on Saturday.