A requirement to be armored against the same caliber of guns as they carried, combined with the displacement restriction, resulted in cramped ships, a problem that was exacerbated as wartime modifications that considerably strengthened their anti-aircraft batteries significantly increased their crews.

Over the next three years, she was occupied with two primary roles: naval gunfire support for amphibious assaults across the Pacific and anti-aircraft defense for the fast carrier task force.

After a final refit, she was placed in reserve and remained inactive in the Navy's inventory until 1962 when she was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register and sold for scrap the following year.

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

The completed hull was launched on 21 November 1941, with the christening performed by Margaret Robbins, the daughter of the Governor of Indiana, Henry F. Schricker.

During the elaborate commissioning ceremony, which was attended by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, the ship flew the flag from the old battleship Indiana that had been used during the Battle of Santiago de Cuba in 1898.

By this time, the United States had been at war with Germany and Japan for nearly a year, and was in the midst of the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Pacific; Indiana was ordered to join the forces engaged there.

[3] On 14 November, Indiana was assigned as the flagship for Task Group (TG) 2.6, which included the light cruiser Columbia and the destroyers De Haven and Saufley.

The five ships, joined by North Carolina, Washington, and three more destroyers, then got underway on 18 January for the next major amphibious operation the Pacific, the Marshall Islands campaign.

Further training took place from 25 to 28 January, including more anti-aircraft practice; Indiana also served as a target for simulated air attacks from the carrier aircraft.

She then conducted sea trials and test fired her main battery to ensure there were no remaining structural issues from the collision.

She spent the next two weeks training her gun crews before departing in late April to rejoin the fleet for the next operation in the central Pacific.

That same day, she got underway in company with Massachusetts and four destroyers to join TF 58 for Operation Hailstone, the major attack on Truk Atoll conducted over the course of 29–30 April.

Late in the day on 15 June, after the ground forces had gone ashore, Japanese air strikes targeted the invasion fleet.

They arrived there on 14 October, and two days later Indiana and Idaho, escorted by two destroyers, left for Puget Sound Navy Yard for a thorough overhaul that was completed on 30 November.

Following another round of sea trials, Indiana left on 6 December, bound for Pearl Harbor, where she conducted training exercises and additional repairs that lasted through the end of the year.

On 14 March, Indiana sortied with South Dakota, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Washington, now designated TU 58.1.3, to support another round of strikes on Japan that were conducted three days later.

On 7 April, the Japanese launched a major counter-attack on the Allied naval forces, including large-scale kamikaze strikes and Operation Ten-Go with the battleship Yamato, but they were repelled with heavy losses.

The winds also blew seawater into the ventilation intakes for the engine room, shorting out her switchboard and disabling her steering controls for about forty minutes.

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

She supported carrier strikes on the Tokyo area on 10 July and took part in the first bombardment of the Japanese home islands by capital ships during the war.

For the attack, which took place on 14 July, Indiana was assigned to TU 34.8.1, which included Massachusetts and South Dakota, the heavy cruisers Chicago and Quincy, and nine destroyers.

Indiana then resumed her anti-aircraft support duties with the fast carrier task force until being detached for another bombardment operation with TU 34.8.1 on 29 July.

[17] On 1 August, BatDiv 8 was detached to form Support Unit 38.1.2; the ships continued their attacks on coastal cities in company with TF 37.

Japan agreed to surrender unconditionally on 15 August while Indiana was en route to the coast to support another wave of carrier strikes.

Over the course of the next week, Indiana was moored in the harbor and used to process POWs, including 54 USN personnel, 28 marines, 64 civilians, and a number of US Army and Canadian soldiers.

In March 1954, a program to equip the four ships with secondary batteries consisting of ten twin 3-inch (76 mm) guns were proposed, but the plan came to nothing.

[18] The ships remained laid up in Bremerton, Washington, into the early 1960s; on 27 June 1961, Admiral Arleigh Burke, the Chief of Naval Operations, designated the four South Dakota-class battleships as eligible for disposal, and on 1 May 1962, Fred Korth, the Secretary of the Navy, recommended she be stricken from the Naval Vessel Register effective on 1 June.

[17][19] Some of the low-background steel that made up Indiana's hull was recycled to create the low background counting chamber at the in Vivo Radioassay and Research Facility (IVRRF) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.