Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	1908
Launched:	September 1909
Commissioned SMS:	May 1911
Commissioned USS:	7 April 1920
Decommissioned:	20 September 1920
Fate:	sunk as bombing target 21 July 1921
Stricken:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	24,500 tons
Length:	546 feet
Beam:	93.3 feet
Draft:	29.5 feet
Propulsion:
Speed:	21 knots
Range:
Complement:	1150 officers and men
Armament:	12 12-inch guns, 14 150mm (5.9-inch) guns, six 500mm (19.7-inch) torpedo tubes
Motto:

Ostfriesland was a Dreadnought-type battleship named for the German province bordering on the Netherlands and the North Sea. Her keel was laid down in 1908 at Wilhelmshaven. She was launched in September 1909, and commissioned as Ostfriesland in the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy) in May 1911.

Ostfriesland was surrendered to the Allies following World War I and commissioned into the United States Navy on April 7, 1920, at Rosyth, Scotland, with Captain J.F. Hellweg in command.

Though in need of repairs, the ship managed to sail to New York where she decommissioned September 20, 1920. At the urging of Billy Mitchell, Ostfriesland and several other ex-German warships, became targets for a demonstration of air power. Bombed by Army planes from Langley Field in Virginia, she was sunk on July 21, 1921, about 60 miles off the Virginia Capes.