Massachusetts thereafter transferred to the Pacific War for operations against Japan she spent the war primarily as an escort for the fast carrier task force to protect the aircraft carriers from surface and air attacks. There, she engaged in an artillery duel with the incomplete French battleship Jean Bart and neutralized her. On completion, Massachusetts was sent to support Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa, in November 1942.
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 by wartime modifications that considerably strengthened their anti-aircraft batteries and significantly increased their crews. The first American battleships designed after the Washington treaty system began to break down in the mid-1930s, they took advantage of an escalator clause that allowed increasing the main battery to 16-inch (406 mm) guns, but refusal to authorize larger battleships kept their displacement close to the Washington limit of 35,000 long tons (36,000 t). USS Massachusetts (BB-59) is the third of four South Dakota-class fast battleships built for the United States Navy in the late 1930s.
Massachusetts off the coast of Point Wilson, Washington, c.
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