Following a direct request from the British Admiralty and a series of high level staff meetings, American opinion changed, and Battleship Division Nine joined the Grand Fleet on 7 December 1917.

[2] At the first meeting between representatives of the two navies in April 1917, the British First Sea Lord—Admiral Sir John Jellicoe—had astonished the new American naval envoy—Rear Admiral William S. Sims—by informing him that Allied shipping losses had recently surpassed 600,000 long tons (610,000 t) per month, and that the Admiralty did not see any immediate solution to the problem.

The Admiralty intended that the arrival of the American dreadnoughts would allow it to decommission five ships of the pre-dreadnought King Edward VII class, freeing up four thousand officers and ratings to serve on new light cruisers, destroyers, and submarines then under construction.

On 10 November 1917, Admiral Benson cabled Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, recommending the dispatch of four dreadnoughts for service with the Grand Fleet, noting "If, in any encounter, it should be indicated that the outcome would have been more favorable or more decisive had more Allied forces been available, it would be difficult to satisfactorily explain the absence of our ships.

Furthermore, they were commanded by an experienced and highly capable officer in Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman, a 37-year veteran who had been commended for valor at the Battle of Manila Bay, and was known both as an expert seaman and an extremely affable man.

[13] The four ships of Battleship Division Nine—accompanied by the destroyer Manley—got underway from Lynnhaven Roads, Virginia on 25 November 1917, bound for the anchorage of the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands.

"[14] Severe storm damage allowed over 250 long tons (250 t) of seawater to flood the forward compartments of New York, lowering her bow to the point where she was in danger of foundering in the heavy seas.

[15] Though Florida eventually rejoined the flagship when the storm blew itself out, Delaware sailed on alone to the scheduled rendezvous with the British light cruiser Caroline off Cape Wrath, Scotland, where the division would reassemble in the early hours of 7 December.

As he would later note of his squadron's assimilation: I realized that the British fleet had had three years of actual warfare and knew the game from the ground floor up; that while we might know it theoretically, there would be a great deal to learn practically.

Though learning an entirely new system of signals was, as Admiral Rodman put it, "almost the same as if in reading we had substituted a new set of letters,"[20] within three days of their arrival, the ships of Battleship Division Nine were able to take part in fleet maneuvers in the North Sea with no apparent difficulty.

Having provided numerous veteran gun-crews to serve aboard armed merchantmen in the previous months, the gunnery complements of Division Nine were badly depleted and filled with inexperienced officers and recent recruits.

During one of these exercises, the American sailors were treated to their first encounter with an enemy warship when a German U-boat's conning tower was sighted by the two British battleships directly ahead of New York.

[37] Although the outbound trip to Norway was uneventful, things began to heat up for the escort force on 8 February, as they waited just outside Norwegian territorial waters for the return convoy to assemble.

[38] After the convoy returned to Scapa Flow on 10 February, Rodman officially reported to Admiral Beatty that two torpedoes had been fired at Florida, and two at Delaware, and that only the skillful handling of both ships had saved them from harm.

"[41] Less than a week after their return, Battleship Division Nine was once again called upon to protect the Scandinavian Convoy as part of a general Grand Fleet response to intelligence reports suggesting German battlecruisers were loose in the North Sea.

Delaware suffered damage to her ventilators that caused the generators to stop working, cutting electrical power throughout the ship and forcing a reduction in speed to 12 kn (14 mph; 22 km/h) for nearly an hour.

German Admiral Reinhard Scheer, aware of the strategic potential of destroying a squadron of British battleships, had finally decided to make an attempt on the Scandinavian Convoy, using the overwhelming force of his entire fleet.

[44] Under strict radio silence, the High Seas Fleet sailed on the morning of 23 April to attempt an intercept, leaving the British completely unaware that they had left their base.

[46] At one point in the chase, however, a reversal of course by the Germans meant that the entire Grand Fleet was forced to reorient itself in the opposite direction, placing Battleship Division Nine in the van.

The inevitable result was machinery breakdowns that reduced the squadron to three ships, a development considered unacceptable given the Division's important position at the tail end of the battle line.

A novel attempt to end the submarine menace relying heavily on American industrial capacity, the Barrage called for more than 70,000 mines to be placed across a stretch of water 250 nmi (290 mi; 460 km) wide.

For the most part, these expeditions proved uneventful, but on two occasions, on 30 June and again on 8 August, lookouts on the battleships reported seeing U-boats or torpedoes in the water, forcing the Division to maneuver accordingly.

[55][A 1] On the evening of 14 October, as New York led the force back into Pentland Firth, she was rocked by a violent underwater collision on her starboard side, followed shortly after by another to the stern that broke off two of her propeller blades, reducing the ship to one engine and a speed of 12 kn (14 mph; 22 km/h).

It began with a warm reference to the American squadron: "I am happy to have found myself once more with the Grand Fleet, and this pleasure has been increased by the opportunity I have had of seeing the splendid ships of the United States in line with our own, and of meeting Admiral Rodman together with the officers and men under him.

"[67] To this, Admiral Beatty replied: "We are glad that Your Majesty should have been able personally to observe our complete accord with the United States Squadron and the firm friendship which binds their officers and men to Your own.

On 3 October, Prince Max of Baden replaced Georg von Hertling as Chancellor of Germany, and immediately asked President Woodrow Wilson to arrange an armistice.

[70] Accordingly, Hipper developed Plan 19, which called for destroyer strikes against the Thames Estuary and Flanders to draw the Grand Fleet south, where a waiting line of U-boats would attempt to even the odds.

Because no neutral nation wanted to host the rebellious sailors of the mutinous armada, the Allies eventually decided to have the force interned at Scapa Flow, with the guns of the Grand Fleet's ships nearby in case of any attempt at a break-out.

"[75] In a similar vein, Admiral Rodman wrote, "It was hard to realize that the ships which we had expected and hoped to engage, would all be given up without a struggle or fleet action, and surrender without a fight.

Though the fact that the American battleships never had the opportunity to confront their German opposites dampened the sense of their achievements, they nonetheless played an important part in the winning of the War at Sea.