deployed to Europe as part of the US Navy's Battleship Division Nine, under the command of Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman. The force arrived on 7 December and was assigned to the 6th Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet. In July 1918, Delaware was withdrawn from overseas service and returned to the United States. In 1920, the US Navy adopted hull numbers for its ships; Delaware was assigned the hull number BB-28. Delaware made only two more cruises, both for midshipmen, under her new identification number: one in 1922 and the second in early 1923. Delaware sailed to Europe on the second trip, and stopped at a number of ports, including Gibraltar. She returned to the US in August of that year, at which point her crew was reassigned to the newer battleship . She was then taken to the Boston Navy Yard, where her armaments were removed. The ship was decommissioned in November 1923 and sold to shipbreakers in February 1924. USS North Dakota Upon commissioning, the ship was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, alongside her sister Delaware. Her first overseas cruise came in November 1910, when she steamed across the Atlantic to visit France and Britain. North Dakota also took part in the invasion of Vera Cruz in 1914. Unlike her sister, North Dakota remained off the American coast for the duration of the United States' involvement in World War I. Hugh Rodman, the commander of the American expeditionary force, specifically requested that North Dakota be kept stateside; he felt her turbine engines were too unreliable for the ship to be deployed to a war zone. In 1917, her engines were replaced with new geared turbines, and new fire control equipment was installed. From 1917, she was employed as a training ship for gunners and engineers. Post-war, North Dakota made a second trip to Europe, primarily to ports in the Mediterranean Sea. During the visit, the ship was tasked with the return of the remains of the Italian ambassador, Vincenzo Macchi di Cellere, who had died 20 October 1919 in Washington, DC. The ship participated in the aerial bombing demonstrations off the Virginia Capes in 1921. In 1923, a third trip to Europe, this time with midshipmen from the Naval Academy aboard. The ship stopped in Spain, Scotland, and Scandinavia. Like her sister, she was relegated to the surplus naval forces that had to be dismantled under the Washington