California was moored in Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 when the Japanese attacked the port, bringing the United States into World War II.

Her crew took part in the occupation of Japan after the end of the war, and after returning to the United States via the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, was laid up in Philadelphia in 1946.

The ship was powered by four-shaft General Electric turbo-electric transmission and eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers rated at 26,800 shaft horsepower (20,000 kW), generating a top speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph).

[2][3] The ship was armed with a main battery of twelve 14-inch (356 mm)/50 caliber guns[Note 1] in four, three-gun turrets on the centerline, placed in two superfiring pairs forward and aft of the superstructure.

The secondary battery consisted of fourteen 5-inch (127 mm)/51 caliber guns mounted in individual casemates clustered in the superstructure amidships.

For the duration of her peacetime career, California was occupied with routine training exercises, including joint Army-Navy maneuvers and the annual fleet problems.

After the conclusion of the exercises, California steamed north to New York City, thereafter joining a naval review for President Herbert Hoover off the Virginia Capes on 20 May.

On its return to the Pacific over the course of 27 October to 9 November, the Battle Fleet conducted exercises as it passed through the canal and steamed to San Pedro, including nighttime attacks by the accompanying destroyers.

California and her sister Tennessee transited the Panama Canal in early 1938 for a visit to Ponce, Puerto Rico, which lasted from 6 to 11 March.

Following the conclusion of the maneuvers, Roosevelt ordered the Battle Fleet to remain in Hawaii permanently; the new forward deployment was calculated to deter Japanese aggression in the Pacific.

3, 5, and 7, by which time Captain Joel Bunkley and Vice Admiral William S. Pye, the Battle Fleet commander, had returned to the ship.

The portable pumps used by these vessels lacked the power necessary to counteract the flooding, and the ship eventually settled into the mud as the hull slowly filled with water over the next three days.

Jackson C. Pharris, one of the ship's gunners, organized a group of men to carry ammunition up from the magazines and rescued several sailors who had been overcome by fuel oil fumes.

[12] Over the next several months, salvage efforts proceeded as workers patched the hull and pumped out the water, finally re-floating the ship on 25 March 1942.

[15] On 31 January 1944, California, Captain Henry Poynter Burnett, commanding, departed Puget Sound and began a series of sea trials followed by a shakedown cruise off San Pedro.

A Japanese shell from a 4.7-inch (120 mm) field gun struck the ship at 09:10 aft of the fire control platform, killing one man and injuring ten.

The ship's air search radar was disabled by the hit, which started a fire that was quickly contained by damage control teams.

She remained off shore overnight, and after establishing radio communications with the marines ashore, provided fire support to break up Japanese night time counterattacks.

California and Tennessee arrived on 23 July and began a bombardment of San Jose on the southern end of the island as a diversion from the actual landing beaches on further north.

California then departed the area and returned to Guam to support the troops still fighting there until 9 August, when she left to replenish ammunition and fuel at Eniwetok.

California, again part of Oldendorf's bombardment group, which now included Maryland, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and West Virginia, departed on 12 October bound for the Philippines.

The latter attack made the Japanese aware of the impending assault on the Philippines, leading to the activation of Operation Shō-Gō 1, the planned riposte to an Allied landing.

Allied reconnaissance aircraft and submarines reported sightings of the fleet as it approached the area, prompting the bombardment group to withdraw to southern Leyte every night in anticipation of a Japanese attack on the amphibious assault ships.

On 24 October, reports of Japanese naval forces approaching the area led Oldendorf's ships to prepare for action at the exit of the Surigao Strait.

[5][18] In the meantime, the main Japanese fleet, the Central Force under Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, had passed through the San Bernardino Strait under cover of darkness and arrived early on 25 October.

The Japanese battleships and cruisers attacked Taffy 3, a force of escort carriers and destroyers guarding the invasion fleet in the Battle off Samar, prompting its commander Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague to make urgent calls for help.

By the time the bombardment group arrived on the scene, Kurita had disengaged, having been convinced by Taffy 3's heavy resistance that he was instead facing the far more powerful Fast Carrier Task Force.

[5] Shortly after 17:15 that day, a pair of Zero kamikazes approached the ship; California's gunners shot one of them down, but the other struck her on the port side abreast of the mainmast.

On 17 and 18 June, she and the heavy cruisers New Orleans and Tuscaloosa bombarded Japanese positions on Yaesu-Dake and Yuza-Dake ridges in support of the 96th Infantry Division.

From 15 to 22 July, she lay at Kerama Rettō, replenishing fuel and stores, thereafter joining Task Force 95, which was sent into the East China Sea to clear mines.