After entering service, Alabama was briefly deployed to strengthen the British Home Fleet, tasked with protecting convoys to the Soviet Union.

After a refit in early 1945, she returned to the fleet for operations during the Battle of Okinawa and the series of attacks on the Japanese mainland in July and August, including several bombardments of coastal industrial targets.

The South Dakota class was ordered in the context of global naval rearmament during the breakdown of the Washington treaty system that had controlled battleships construction during the 1920s and early 1930s.

[2] The ship was armed with a main battery of nine 16"/45 caliber Mark 6 guns[a] in three triple-gun turrets on the centerline, two of which were placed in a superfiring pair forward, with the third aft.

[2] Alabama received a series of modifications through her wartime career, consisting primarily of additions to anti-aircraft battery and various types of radar sets.

[7] Alabama's first deployment came in April with the temporary assignment to the British Home Fleet to reinforce the Allied naval forces available to escort the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union.

At the time, the British had sent several capital ships to the Mediterranean Sea to support the Allied invasion of Sicily, stripping away forces necessary to counter German naval strength in Norway, most significantly the battleship Tirpitz.

TF 61 was commanded by Rear Admiral Olaf M. Hustvedt; over the course of the next three months, they frequently operated with the battleships HMS Anson and Duke of York.

[7][8] Alabama, South Dakota, and several British units covered an operation to reinforce the island of Spitzbergen in the Arctic Ocean in early June.

[7][9] On arriving in the south Pacific, Alabama embarked on an extensive training program that lasted for a month and a half to prepare the battleship to operate with the fast carrier task force.

Alabama escorted the aircraft carriers while they struck Japanese airfields on nearby islands in the Marshalls to neutralize their ability to interfere with the landing.

Alabama, South Dakota, and the battleship North Carolina shelled the island of Roi-Namur over the course of 29 and 30 January, targeting defensive positions, airfields, and other facilities.

[7][10] Over the next two months, the fast carrier task force embarked on a series of raids on Japanese-held islands in the central Pacific to prepare for the next major offensive.

The ships of TG 58.2 sortied on 12 February to participate in Operation Hailstone, a major raid on the island of Truk, which had been the primary staging area for the Japanese fleet in the central Pacific.

[7][11] Alabama and the rest of the fleet departed Majuro on 22 March to attack the next set of targets: Palau, Yap, Ulithi, and Woleai in the Caroline Islands.

While en route to the Carolines, the ships came under attack from a group of Japanese aircraft on the night of 29 March and Alabama shot one of them down and assisted with another.

The next day, Alabama took part in a preparatory bombardment of the island intended to weaken Japanese defenses so that minesweepers could begin to clear approaches to the landing beach.

Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee, the TG 58.7 commander, commended Alabama's radar operators for their prompt detection of the Japanese aircraft, which allowed the American carriers to launch their fighters with enough time to intercept the attackers away from the fleet.

The ship then became the flagship of Rear Admiral Edward Hanson, the commander of Battleship Division (BatDiv) 9, and left the island on 14 July in company with Bunker Hill.

The next stage in the campaign, the invasion of Guam, began on 21 July and Alabama performed her role of carrier escort during operations there for the next three weeks.

Ozawa's carriers, by now depleted of most of their aircraft, were to serve as a decoy for Kurita's and Nishimura's battleships, which were to use the distraction to attack the invasion fleet directly.

Unknown to Halsey and Mitscher, Kurita had resumed his approach through the San Bernardino Strait late on 24 October and passed into Leyte Gulf the next morning.

[20] Heavy resistance from Taffy 3 threw Kurita's battleships and cruisers into disarray and led him to break off the attack before Alabama and the rest of TF 34 could arrive.

[19] Halsey detached Iowa and New Jersey as TG 34.5 to pursue Kurita through the San Bernardino Strait while Lee took the rest of his ships further southwest to try to cut off his escape, but both groups arrived too late.

On 3 November, the fleet departed for another series of raids on Japanese airfields and other facilities on Luzon as the amphibious force prepared for its next landing on the island of Mindoro in the western Philippines.

With an escort of five destroyers on 9 June, Alabama, Indiana, and Massachusetts steamed to shell Japanese facilities on the island of Minami Daito Jima; they repeated the attack the next day.

She contributed sailors and marines to the initial occupation force, and she cruised with the carriers while they used their aircraft to search for prisoner of war camps.

She remained there until 20 September, when she got underway for Okinawa, where she took on 700 men, most of whom were Seabees, to carry them back to the United States as part of Operation Magic Carpet.

Alabama arrived in Mobile on 14 September having traveled some 5,600 nautical miles (10,400 km; 6,400 mi), the longest tow of a vessel that was not an active warship.

[33] In the early 2000s, the museum raised funds to complete major repairs to Alabama, including removing 2.7 million gallons of water contaminated with fuel oil from the ship.