New Mexico was the U.S. Navy's most advanced warship and its first battleship with a turbo-electric transmission, which helped her reach a maximum speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph).

Shortly after completing initial training, New Mexico escorted the ship that carried President Woodrow Wilson to Brest, France to sign the Treaty of Versailles.

The interwar period was marked by repeated exercises with the Pacific and Atlantic Fleets, use as a trial ship for PID controllers, and a major modernization between March 1931 and January 1933.

New Mexico was awarded six battle stars for her service in the Pacific campaign and was present in Tokyo Bay for Japan's formal surrender on 2 September 1945.

She was sold for scrapping to the Lipsett Division of Luria Bros in November 1947, but attempts to bring her to Newark, New Jersey for breaking up were met with resistance from city officials.

The Under Secretary of the Navy Department was sent to defuse what the media began to call the "Battle of Newark Bay"; the city agreed to break up New Mexico and two other battleships before scrapping operations in Newark Bay ceased, while Lipsett was instructed to dismantle the ships in a set timeframe or suffer financial penalties.

Unlike the other members of her class, New Mexico was powered by four-shaft General Electric steam turbines fitted with turbo-electric transmission and nine oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers rated at 27,500 shaft horsepower (20,500 kW), generating a top speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph).

[1] The ship was armed with a main battery of twelve 14-inch (356 mm)/50 caliber guns 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.

In addition to her gun armament, New Mexico was also fitted with two 21-inch (530 mm) torpedo tubes, mounted submerged in the hull, one on each broadside.

She escorted the passenger ship George Washington as she carried President Woodrow Wilson to France for the Versailles Peace Conference, departing the United States on 15 January 1919.

[7] After her training exercises in the Atlantic and the Pacific were finished, New Mexico was overhauled and modernized at the Philadelphia Harbor by the Navy from March 1931 to January 1933.

[10] In 1937, she arrived in Hawaii to sail to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, where she and several other ships were sent to help the Navy evaluate fighting in sub-arctic conditions.

[4][13] The owner of Oregon sued the federal government for the loss of the ship, but the courts found New Mexico blameless in the collision.

During the bombardment she came under heavy attack by kamikazes, one of which hit her bridge, killing her commanding officer, Captain Robert Walton Fleming, and 29 others.

Bruce Fraser, the commander of the British Pacific Fleet, narrowly escaped death while on her bridge, although his secretary was killed.

[4][20] More extensive repairs were completed at Pearl Harbor, after which New Mexico sailed to the island of Ulithi, where she was assigned to Task Force 54 (TF 54), the fire-support group for the invasion of Okinawa.

[4][20] While she was approaching her berth in the Hagushi anchorage, just after sunset on 12 May, New Mexico was attacked by two kamikazes; one plunged into her, the other hit her with its bomb.

News of the war's end reached her when she was at Saipan on 15 August; the next day she sailed for Okinawa to join the occupation force.

She departed Tokyo Bay on 6 September, passing Okinawa, Hawaii, and the Panama Canal, before arriving at Boston on 17 October.

The proximity of Newark to rail lines made it an ideal location for dismantling the ship and hauling away the steel.

On 12 November, while off the coast of New York, the tugs pulling the battleship encountered heavy weather and were forced to cut the tow lines.

Two city fireboats, Michael P. Duffy and William T. Brennan, were dispatched and were prepared to use their fire hoses and chemical sprayers to halt Lipsett and New Mexico.

[25] In response, Lipsett organized its own force of four tugs, and the United States Coast Guard declared it would guarantee safe passage of New Mexico, provided legal entry was permitted.

[24] As New Mexico awaited suitable tidal conditions to make the final tow into Newark, the Navy Department sent Under Secretary W. John Kenney to negotiate.

The larger 1,100-pound (500 kg) bell was on display at the Santa Fe Plaza from 1948 until the early 1970s and is now part of the New Mexico History Museum collection.

[27] The smaller 800-pound (360 kg) bell[28] was sent to the University of New Mexico, where it hung in Scholes Hall from 1948 to 1964 and subsequently in its own freestanding tower near Smith Plaza.