 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 . 
